Lukashenko approves changes to national public safety monitoring system

Alexander Lukashenko has signed a decree titled 'On Amendments to Presidential Decrees on the Republican System of Public Safety Monitoring.'

Changes have been introduced to the November 28, 2013, Decree No. 527 'On Issues of Establishing and Using Video Surveillance Systems for Maintaining Public Order,' assigning regional and Minsk city executive committees the responsibility to annually update the list of facilities required to install video surveillance equipment.

The May 25, 2017, Decree No. 187 'On the Republican System of Public Safety Monitoring' has been revised to reflect practical experience in the system’s operation.

The decree provides for additional involvement of individual entrepreneurs and legal entities in the organizational and financial support of the monitoring system. At the same time, individuals—owners of residential premises in apartment buildings—are exempted from both reimbursing state budget expenditures and paying for electricity consumed by the equipment of the republican public safety monitoring system.

The decree identifies entities exempt from cost-sharing for maintenance and operation of the monitoring system—budgetary institutions, organizations of communal property, state road management organizations, and others. This list is not exhaustive and may be expanded by a decision of the President of the Republic of Belarus.

The number of users of the republican public safety monitoring system has been increased. New users include subdivisions of the Armed Forces carrying out operational-search activities and guarding critically important facilities.

The monitoring system may now also be used to record administrative offenses related to traffic safety and vehicle operation.

The decree includes other provisions aimed at accelerating the pace and improving the quality of the monitoring system’s development.