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Dutch person here with a little insight what's to come for you guys. Some information about our tiny little country (in Wester Europe, very pro-US) with just 17
by digitalengineer 13y ago
Dutch person here with a little insight what's to come for you guys. Some information about our tiny little country (in Wester Europe, very pro-US) with just 17 million people.
Our government listens in on more calls every year than in the whole of the US combined. All our telecommunications providers are forced to have the capability to intercept all traffic (phone and internet). Encrypted data must be stored for an unlimited time to facilitate possible decryption in the future. Our 'Team Digital Expertise' developed software that profiles social networks on which a suspect operates to use it in order to gather crime-related information.
Our police buys TomTom software-data to see when and where they can get the maximum amount of money if they photograph speeding drivers. (Safety is not their first concern, money is). Local and national police now use drones. The army is training how to spy on it's own civilians.
Our 'Camera Surveillance Act' allows images to be retained for up to four weeks and also facilitates the use of cameras for law enforcement purposes, whereas before the main purpose of camera surveillance was keeping public order. They're working on a pay-per-mile car tax system but activating it stopped when it turned out they were collecting more (personal) data than was technically needed to run the system and using the data for purposes other than those for which was collected. Every important road is viewed by camera's with license-plate scanning software. You can travel by public transport but a special card with chip and login/logout is required. You can purchase one without your name and address but you can only add money to it using your bank-account. The system tracks all travelers' movements (departure and end points for each leg of every journey), in most cases combined with the traveler's identity. It retains the data for seven years.
Our Dutch passport contains both fingerprints, facial recognition and RIFD. Every large city center is equipped with camera's with powerful microphones. Our Minister of the Interior announced plans to also store the biometric data in a central database. Dutch hotels are breaking data protection laws by photocopying guests' passports and identification cards because they are required by our government to do so.
The 'Electronic child file' records a child's development and environmental indicators from birth. Teachers are forced to build a profile of every child in their class along with a description of his/her family's situation. It received local media coverage when it turned out doctors are even recording when a child starts getting pubic hair. The government is also actively building a electronic patient file, containing all medical details of every person. Because of the workload they have asked insurance companies to help building this. (That got a lot of people's attention).
Privacy? There is no such thing.
Source: https://www.privacyinternational.org/reports/netherlands https://www.privacyinternational.org/reports/netherlands
- LatvjuAvs 13y ago1984 could not come soon enough :D
- dirktheman 13y agoFellow Dutchman here, and I couldn't agree more. I actually helped building the electronic patient file in two major hospitals, and I can't tell you enough about the massive clusterfuck that is. The government requires you to finish it before a certain date, only they provide you with the exact requirements after that date. Basic security measures like encrypting data? No way! To me, America is still the land of the slightly more free and little more brave!
- digitalengineer 13y agoAgreed. Imagine voting for you own major, sheriff, congressman and president! (This is no joke people, we can't. They're appointed from within their own ranks. We can vote for a specific party-leader and hope they win. But the always end up creating a coalition with 2 or 33 other party's and needing to compromise).
- jacalata 13y agoI don't actually think voting for judges and sheriffs is a good idea at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio
- digitalengineer 13y agoOh, that guy. He's even know over here. (Journalists like to pick out the most 'interesting' persons). That guy scares me. You also vote for judges? Would it help if there was a maximum someone could get voted for? Like with your president?
- adventured 13y agoIt's ideal for most judges to be elected to life terms. That limits concerns about them needing to serve the politics of the minute to get re-elected. They can take principled stands without worrying about being thrown out. The Supreme Court has routine stood up to both Congress and the President, and they can only do that because they can't be removed (except under extraordinary circumstances of corruption).