According to Radio Netherlands, a new professional CCTV system was installed at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam to tackle crime, officials have insisted. About 1,350 CCTV cameras were installed at the hub last year and footage from the devices is already being used to investigate 600 separate incidents.

Border police say the technology has helped them to identify asylum seekers and enables the police to crack down on people trafficking, drug smuggling and lesser offences such as baggage theft. The cameras, which are located at check-in desks, arrival and departure halls, boarding gates and shopping areas, are monitored by police 24 hours a day and stored on professional CCTV recorders for 28 days. Officers are hoping to expand the system to cover the whole of the airport in due course. This would bring the number of cameras in operation at the hub to 3,500.