AI in policing: Netherlands
Every documented deployment of artificial intelligence by law enforcement in Netherlands currently recorded on this site, drawn from the deployment tracker. Each entry is tied to a published source and carries the date it was last checked.
Deployments
NL Dutch Police (Politie) Video Analytics Search (BriefCam) Operational
- Legal basis
- Not detailed in the source reviewed
- Oversight
- Documented via the Dutch government's own public algorithm register, a transparency mechanism
The Dutch police's own entry in the government's official algorithm register describes a tool using convolutional neural network and deep learning models to identify moving objects in video and classify them by characteristics including type (person or vehicle), colour, size and direction of movement, letting investigators combine filters such as a person on a bicycle wearing a particular colour travelling in a particular direction. Results are reviewed by police staff; the register states the algorithm itself does not make investigative decisions. This is one of the clearest official public descriptions found anywhere of how this class of video analytics tool actually works.
Source: Dutch government algorithm register (Algoritmeregister) · last checked 2026-08-25
NL Dutch National Police (Politie) Crime Anticipation System (CAS) Discontinued
- Legal basis
- No dedicated statute; registered in the Dutch national algorithm register
- Oversight
- Dutch national algorithm register provides public transparency; no dedicated regulator identified
Divided cities into small grid cells and combined police crime records with national statistics including average neighbourhood income, benefit recipients, household composition and distance to the nearest known offender, outputting hotspots and hot times in four-hour blocks. Officers were sent to drive through flagged areas, often for only a few minutes. The model was closed, so officers could not see why a cell was flagged. An indicator counting non-Western immigrants was removed in 2017 after being found to add no predictive value. Piloted in 2015 in Enschede, Groningen-Noord, Hoefkade and Hoorn, then rolled out from 2017 across more than half of the then 167 police departments. Halted in January 2026 and discontinued after an internal report concluded its predictive capability was extremely limited and the force could never demonstrate its effect.
Source: AlgorithmWatch; Dutch national algorithm register · last checked 2026-08-20