Methodology

How we build the map - transparently, by design

MAI SIGUR ("safer" in Romanian) uses official sources only, a strictly place-based model (focused on places, never on people) and anonymisation designed in from the start. Here we explain where the data comes from, how it is protected and what role artificial intelligence plays.

Where the data comes from

The platform combines several levels of official data. The finest geographical level publicly available in Romania today is the sector (Bucharest is divided into six administrative sectors) - and the only official series geolocated by sector is the crime coefficient published by Poliția Capitalei (the Bucharest Police).

The official layer by sector - the crime coefficient (DGPMB)

Direcția Generală de Poliție a Municipiului București (DGPMB, the Bucharest Police Directorate) publishes each year a specific crime coefficient for each of the 6 sectors, with a risk rating (high / medium / low). It is an official index - not the raw number of offences - and forms the "Official data" layer on the map.

Sector2022202320242025Trend

Source: DGPMB - Coeficienți de criminalitate (crime coefficients), b.politiaromana.ro

The national context - verified figures

IndicatorValueYearSource
Offences reported nationally527,535 (+5.1%)2022SNOSP 2023-2027
Street crime+7.3% vs. 20212022SNOSP 2023-2027
Road safety offences+14.3% vs. 20212022SNOSP 2023-2027
Offences in schools+83.6%2022/2023SNOSP 2023-2027
Domestic violence+56.8% compared with 20162022SNOSP 2023-2027
Protection orders issued15,256 (+10%)2022SNOSP 2023-2027
Offences recorded358,960 (+2%)2023MAI - 2023 results
Homicides (falling)216 (down from 238)2023MAI - 2023 results
Criminal cases resolved502,5842024Poliția Română 2024 report
Robberies / thefts (IGPR level)-15% / -5%2024Poliția Română 2024 report

Sources: SNOSP 2023-2027 · MAI · Poliția Română - statistics · data.gov.ro · INSSE Tempo Online

SNOSP: Romania's National Public Order and Safety Strategy. MAI: Romania's Ministry of Internal Affairs. Poliția Română / IGPR: the Romanian Police and its General Inspectorate. INSSE: Romania's National Institute of Statistics.

The real incidents layer - from official press releases and the media

Although Romania does not publish an incident-level geolocated dataset, individual events are reported in press releases from Poliția Capitalei (DGPMB), Poliția Română, MAI and ISU (the emergency services inspectorate), as well as in media reports citing the authorities. We collected and manually verified dozens of real cases from Bucharest (2023-2026) and placed them on the map as separate pins. Each pin opens a card with the type of offence, the area, the date and a direct link to the source, so that anyone can check the information.

The three types of data on the map

1. Official data by sector (the coloured areas) - the DGPMB coefficient, real. 2. Real incidents (pins) - cases from official press releases and the media, each with a link to the source. 3. Pilot incidents (dots) - a demonstration set showing what the platform will look like at scale, once connected to feeds from Poliția Locală, the local police (Phase 1). For now, the prediction is based on the available layers and is a demonstration model.

Complementary sources integrated

Anonymised by design

No identifiable personal data is displayed or processed for public display. Protection is built into the architecture from the start ("privacy by design", Art. 25 GDPR), not added afterwards:

The role of artificial intelligence

A large language model (LLM) works "behind the scenes" to turn heterogeneous reports into clean, comparable data, and to estimate concentrations of risk by area:

Processing uses Mistral AI, European artificial intelligence infrastructure, to meet GDPR requirements on data protection and transfers, and the data stays within the EU.

FrameworkWhat it means for the platform
GDPR (Reg. 2016/679) + Legea 190/2018 (Law 190/2018)The data displayed is aggregated and anonymised; no identifiable personal data.
Legea 363/2018 (Law 363/2018, Directive 2016/680)Governs the processing of data by law enforcement authorities - defines what can be shared.
EU AI ActProhibits predictive policing based on individual profiling. Permits aggregated, place-based analysis - our model.
Legea 179/2022 (Law 179/2022, open data)Provides the legal basis for opening up and reusing public sector data.

The compliance conclusion: the safe model is "place-based", aggregated and anonymised - never "person-based". That is the difference between a public transparency platform and a surveillance tool.

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