4 ms·

We (the Dutch) have one of the most watched societies and it's never enough. All phone/internet data is saved for years with almost dragnet like strength, even

We (the Dutch) have one of the most watched societies and it's never enough. All phone/internet data is saved for years with almost dragnet like strength, even though it was deemed excessive by judges. The police buy their traffic information from TomTom, the highways are littered with camera's with licence plate-scanning abilities, cities have permanent bluetooth capable scanners around them (to monitor traffic it is said) and there are there is talk to add a RIFD chip to the official licence plates... And still it's not enough...

secfirstmd 10y ago
It's nothing new. It has gone on amongst the NGO and activist community for many years. Especially the aid worker (in places like Pakistan) and environmental defender community (all over the world). We have investigated a number of instances of pitches by both government and corporate intelligence human penetration over the years in many different countries. In fact we cover it quite extensively in our security training programs that we teach. I think people are often surprised to know that we've seen nearly as many human penetration attempts as digital. The activist space is full of (mostly) good hearted humans who are as vulnerable as any normal person to flattery, money, ego etc (the common and preferred pitching point of a service) and weaknesses like crime, blackmail, revenge etc (the lesser preferred pitching point). On a side note, it's always worth pointing out, especially in Europe, that direct attitribution to a service making a pitch is never so sure. Many countries make pitches pretending to be other (usually local) services. For example the US and Israelis are often aware that Europeans often take personal political stances against their government policies so they will impersonate a local service like AVID. People have spent years not realising what service or country they are really working for.
- digitalengineer 10y ago
  > People have spent years not realising what service or country they are really working for. Imagine someone's surprise when they get arrested. They thought they were doing their country a service and it turns out they were actually aiding the enemy...
  - secfirstmd 10y ago
    Yep.
  - walshemj 10y ago
    The east german stazi used to do this
rocqua 10y ago
I am a dutch citizen as well, and thought we were doing quite well. Do you have sources for the TomTom, bluetooth scanners and most importantly phone/internet data being saved? If this stuff is true, I need to start weighing digital rights a lot more in my politics.
- tremon 10y ago
  Since you're Dutch, I can give you some sources in Dutch: https://www.privacybarometer.nl/maatregel/37/Bewaarplicht_telecomgegevens https://www.privacybarometer.nl/maatregel/37/Bewaarplicht_te... Gives information on the telecom metadata retention directive: 12 months for telephony, 6 months for all Internet traffic. Note: "In addition to this retention directive, all communication providers are required to submit a daily copy of their entire customer base to the DOJ, including name, address, phone number, email and assigned IP". https://www.privacybarometer.nl/maatregel/45/Kentekenregistratie_voor_opsporing https://www.privacybarometer.nl/maatregel/45/Kentekenregistr... About the recent addition that traffic cameras may be used to record and store all license plates passing the camera. This data is accessible to enforcement agencies without warrant. https://www.privacynieuws.nl/internet-en-telecom/bewaarplicht.html https://www.privacynieuws.nl/internet-en-telecom/bewaarplich... - news aggregator for various privacy issues
  - rocqua 10y ago
    Thanks for the info. Luckily, after some digging, there is no current data retention. It was struck by european courts in 2015. There is a new bill currently in the 'tweede kamer' (our house of representatives) to reinstate the data retention. I'm not sure what the expected status of it is. (The fact that the minister who proposed it just resigned probably hurts the prospects of this law.)
Accacin 10y ago
So on a scale of 0 - United Kingdom, where would you say the Dutch are?
- funnyfacts365 10y ago
  Right below the UK. Even their city streets are full of police CCTV cameras. They already were 10 years ago, when I moved there.
- askmike 10y ago
  When it comes to passive surveillance (cameras, dragnet internet tapping) probably not that far behind. But when it comes to more invasive measures like internet censorship [1], or requiring suspects to give over encryption keys (else potentially put them in jail if they refuse) [2] or simply the way you are treated at an airport. The UK is much, much worse. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_King...
hellofunk 10y ago
I'm a little surprised by this, and skeptical of your claims. The Dutch have one of the strongest advocacies in the world for privacy. This is evidenced by many policies, some seemingly trivial, others not, such as: 1) All ISPs are supposed to delete all logs of customers within 6 months. 2) All websites that deposit a cookie on your machine are required by law to require user consent before doing so (which is why so many American websites become a bit different when browsing them from the Netherlands -- all those popups requesting consent). While I know the Dutch basically invented the wire tap decades ago, and I have no reason to believe they don't have an advanced spy mechanism in their government, your claims seem to go much further than reason, and feel a bit tabloid to me. You need to provide some concrete evidence about this.
- phicoh 10y ago
  The claims are true as far as I know. The police did get (or try to get) data from TomTom. In addition the tax office got data that was collected to check if people pay for parking. There are license plate scanners in lots of places. The total number of taps is mostly undisclosed. The police routinely tap conversations between suspects and lawyers. Those are supposed to be deleted but sometimes end up in a file anyhow. There are limits on what the police can do, but by and large there are only very vague limits on what intelligence agencies can collect. So it is safest to assume that all information that is collected in digital form is available to the government in one way or another and only occasionally are there enough protests that some data is not used anymore (such the tax office using information related to parking) Note, the government has no problem restricting what companies can do with data as long as gets what it needs.

secfirstmd 10y ago

It's nothing new. It has gone on amongst the NGO and activist community for many years. Especially the aid worker (in places like Pakistan) and environmental defender community (all over the world). We have investigated a number of instances of pitches by both government and corporate intelligence human penetration over the years in many different countries. In fact we cover it quite extensively in our security training programs that we teach. I think people are often surprised to know that we've seen nearly as many human penetration attempts as digital. The activist space is full of (mostly) good hearted humans who are as vulnerable as any normal person to flattery, money, ego etc (the common and preferred pitching point of a service) and weaknesses like crime, blackmail, revenge etc (the lesser preferred pitching point). On a side note, it's always worth pointing out, especially in Europe, that direct attitribution to a service making a pitch is never so sure. Many countries make pitches pretending to be other (usually local) services. For example the US and Israelis are often aware that Europeans often take personal political stances against their government policies so they will impersonate a local service like AVID. People have spent years not realising what service or country they are really working for.

digitalengineer 10y ago
> People have spent years not realising what service or country they are really working for. Imagine someone's surprise when they get arrested. They thought they were doing their country a service and it turns out they were actually aiding the enemy...
- secfirstmd 10y ago
  Yep.
- walshemj 10y ago
  The east german stazi used to do this

rocqua 10y ago

I am a dutch citizen as well, and thought we were doing quite well. Do you have sources for the TomTom, bluetooth scanners and most importantly phone/internet data being saved? If this stuff is true, I need to start weighing digital rights a lot more in my politics.

tremon 10y ago
Since you're Dutch, I can give you some sources in Dutch: https://www.privacybarometer.nl/maatregel/37/Bewaarplicht_telecomgegevens https://www.privacybarometer.nl/maatregel/37/Bewaarplicht_te... Gives information on the telecom metadata retention directive: 12 months for telephony, 6 months for all Internet traffic. Note: "In addition to this retention directive, all communication providers are required to submit a daily copy of their entire customer base to the DOJ, including name, address, phone number, email and assigned IP". https://www.privacybarometer.nl/maatregel/45/Kentekenregistratie_voor_opsporing https://www.privacybarometer.nl/maatregel/45/Kentekenregistr... About the recent addition that traffic cameras may be used to record and store all license plates passing the camera. This data is accessible to enforcement agencies without warrant. https://www.privacynieuws.nl/internet-en-telecom/bewaarplicht.html https://www.privacynieuws.nl/internet-en-telecom/bewaarplich... - news aggregator for various privacy issues
- rocqua 10y ago
  Thanks for the info. Luckily, after some digging, there is no current data retention. It was struck by european courts in 2015. There is a new bill currently in the 'tweede kamer' (our house of representatives) to reinstate the data retention. I'm not sure what the expected status of it is. (The fact that the minister who proposed it just resigned probably hurts the prospects of this law.)

Accacin 10y ago

So on a scale of 0 - United Kingdom, where would you say the Dutch are?

funnyfacts365 10y ago
Right below the UK. Even their city streets are full of police CCTV cameras. They already were 10 years ago, when I moved there.
askmike 10y ago
When it comes to passive surveillance (cameras, dragnet internet tapping) probably not that far behind. But when it comes to more invasive measures like internet censorship [1], or requiring suspects to give over encryption keys (else potentially put them in jail if they refuse) [2] or simply the way you are treated at an airport. The UK is much, much worse. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_King...

hellofunk 10y ago

I'm a little surprised by this, and skeptical of your claims. The Dutch have one of the strongest advocacies in the world for privacy. This is evidenced by many policies, some seemingly trivial, others not, such as: 1) All ISPs are supposed to delete all logs of customers within 6 months. 2) All websites that deposit a cookie on your machine are required by law to require user consent before doing so (which is why so many American websites become a bit different when browsing them from the Netherlands -- all those popups requesting consent). While I know the Dutch basically invented the wire tap decades ago, and I have no reason to believe they don't have an advanced spy mechanism in their government, your claims seem to go much further than reason, and feel a bit tabloid to me. You need to provide some concrete evidence about this.

phicoh 10y ago
The claims are true as far as I know. The police did get (or try to get) data from TomTom. In addition the tax office got data that was collected to check if people pay for parking. There are license plate scanners in lots of places. The total number of taps is mostly undisclosed. The police routinely tap conversations between suspects and lawyers. Those are supposed to be deleted but sometimes end up in a file anyhow. There are limits on what the police can do, but by and large there are only very vague limits on what intelligence agencies can collect. So it is safest to assume that all information that is collected in digital form is available to the government in one way or another and only occasionally are there enough protests that some data is not used anymore (such the tax office using information related to parking) Note, the government has no problem restricting what companies can do with data as long as gets what it needs.