Netherlands: Big Brother land?
Statewatch Supplement November 2008 - 04.12.2008 15:02
“Netherlands: Big Brother Land?” - this was the question
posed by the Dutch national newspaper NRC Handelsblad
in May when it was revealed that the Netherlands taps
more telephone conversations in one day than the United
States does in a year. This revelation was preceded by
news that CCTV cameras are to be installed on all
national railway trains.
“Netherlands: Big Brother Land?” - this was the question
posed by the Dutch national newspaper NRC Handelsblad
in May when it was revealed that the Netherlands taps
more telephone conversations in one day than the United
States does in a year. This revelation was preceded by
news that CCTV cameras are to be installed on all
national railway trains.
Since July 2007, all telephone interceptions in the
Netherlands have been coordinated by the Korps
Landelijke Politiediensten (KLPD - National Police
Services Agency), a national police force responsible for
centralised missions and subordinate to the Dutch Interior
Ministry. This centralisation has allowed the authorities
to publish statistics on the exact number of interceptions
a year for the first time. A letter by justice minister
Hirsch Ballin (Christen Democratisch Appèl, CDA) to
parliament on 27 May 2008 shows that in the last six
months of 2007, around 1,681 phone conversations were
intercepted in the Netherlands every day, whereas in the
USA, 2,208 phone calls were intercepted during the
whole of 2007. Between July and December 2007, the
Dutch public prosecution service ordered the
interception of 12,491 telephone numbers, 84% of which
were mobile phones and 16% mainline phones.
Interceptions have to be approved by a judge with special
powers to make decisions in criminal investigations
(rechter-commissaris). From now on, the minister will
provide an annual overview on phone tapping.
A day before the phone tapping statistics were
published, the Dutch National Railway (NS) announced
that cameras were to be installed on all trains,
beginning with 99 new trains at the end of the year.
The NS is currently developing an OV-chipcard that will
book an individual's travel on any form of public
transport on one electronic card, an action that was
severely criticised by civil liberties activists and
hackers who have managed to access such cards. Only
a month before this news, police in Zwolle announced
that they would photograph, and keep for three days,
the number plates of cars using a nearby motorway.
Also in May, parliament passed a motion permitting
the retention of people's telephone and internet
traffic data for at least one year; around the same
time, the state prosecution service confiscated a
political cartoonist’s computer on the grounds that he
was using it to produce "discriminating" cartoons.
Last but not least, the Advisory Council of Police
Chiefs (raad van hoofdcommissarissen) confirmed in
May that the Dutch police regularly carried out online
raids on suspect’s computers to search for
incriminating material with the use of Trojan horses.
This is illegal in Germany although Interior minister,
Wolfgang Schäuble, is attempting to change the law
reform to legitimise it in the future. The Dutch have
not yet tested the method in court, and a precise legal
basis allowing the authorities to hack people's
computers without their knowledge does not exist.
Whilst data protection officers in Germany are
opposed to this police investigation method, their
Dutch counterpart, the College Bescherming
Persoonsgegevens, has not given an opinion on the
matter.
'Politie hackt pc van criminelen', Parool.nl, 17.5.08
NRC Handelsblad online, 28-29.5.08, 31.7.08
'Nein zur Online-Durchsuchung' [No online raids], press
release by the German Data Protection Officers conference,
26.10.07,  http://www.bfdi.bund.de/
 Website: http://www.statewatch.org
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