The Swiss Federal Railways has massively increased video surveillance in trains and at stations in recent years with around 25,000 cameras in operation nationwide.
Since 2015 alone, the state-run company has installed 10,000 additional surveillance cameras, according to a report in the German-language paper SonntagsBlick, which was confirmed by a railway spokesperson to Keystone-SDA on Sunday. In total, the Federal Railways trains are currently equipped with 22,300 cameras and another 2,400 cameras are in operation at train stations and other infrastructure.
The Federal Railways have had to fend off criticism in the last few weeks after reports that the railway group was planning to install cameras with facial recognition to analyse commuter behaviour. The company defended the cameras saying that the new “customer frequency measurement system” wouldn’t record personal data and that no facial recognition was planned.
Video surveillance has increased in the federal public transport system, following a trend at other transport companies including in German and in select Swiss cities, writes SonntagsBlick. The railway company says that part of the reason for the increase is the expansion of rail service and that video cameras are a requirement for new trains.
“Video surveillance is part of our security concept. This is an important element for us in order to be able to further increase the safety standards on trains for our employees and customers,” a company spokesperson told SonntagsBlick.
Video images help in the case of an attack on train controllers and can speed up the response to emergencies. Last year, public prosecutors requested video images from the Federal Railways on average 200 times per month, writes SonntagsBlick.
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