Dutch National Police (Politie)

The police's entry in the government algorithm register (last updated 17 November 2025; status in use) describes CATCH as an algorithm that compares the face of an unknown suspect, witness or victim with faces in the CATCH criminal-justice database, to help establish identity; it names Idemia as vendor and gives December 2023 as its start date. Experts review the list of possible matches; a match found by a first expert goes to two independent experts, and a result can lead only to a lead for further investigation. NL Times (20 February 2018, citing Tweakers) reported that the police launched CATCH in 2016, and Securitymanagement.nl (22 July 2025, citing a police release of 21 July 2025) says a new algorithm was taken into use at the end of 2023; it reports for 2024 that 884 of 2,022 submitted images were of searchable quality and 499 recognitions were made, a 56 per cent match rate, and that live facial recognition is never used. Binnenlands Bestuur (19 November 2024) reports there is no specific legislation for police facial recognition, and that the police want to add a database of images of unidentified suspects and to use FaceF1nder to establish where someone appears in footage; neither is confirmed in use.