Police get broad hacking powers

Next week, the Senate will vote on a law which gives police the power to hack into any computer or smartphone. In this regard, Privacy First today sent the following appeal to all relevant MPs:

Honourable MPs,

On Tuesday 26 June, you will vote on the controversial bill Computer crime III, which gives police the power to hack virtually any device. As already pointed out by Privacy First at the parliamentary expert meeting on 20 June 2017 however, this bill has never involved a thorough and independent Privacy Impact Assessment. Moreover, in the case of the bill, the required societal necessity and proportionality have so far never been firmly demonstrated. In Privacy First's view, the bill seems mainly driven by technological determinism: everything that is technically possible is made legally possible. There is deliberately no question of any legal limitation in a technological sense: the effect of the bill will extend to almost everything connected to the internet. So, in the future, virtually all of society, including the Internet of Things. In police circles, people even want to be able to hack into and stop moving cars, with all the dangers this poses to road safety. Moreover, the crimes in which this bill can be used can simply be extended by the minister by Order in Council. That is not a privacy by design, which is function creep (goal shift) by design. This is at odds with the constitutional requirement in Article 10 of the Constitution that any invasion of privacy must be based on a law in the formal sense, with prior parliamentary approval. Privacy First therefore calls on your House to reject this bill, or at least put a stop to the current bill by implementing the motions of the MPs Bredenoord (on parliamentary scrutiny) and Bow (on independent review) to be adopted.

Sincerely,

Privacy First Foundation

Read HERE the letter Privacy First sent earlier to the House of Representatives about this bill.

Update 26 June 2018: today, the Senate unfortunately passed the bill adopted. VVD, PvdA, CDA, ChristenUnie, SGP, OSF and D66 voted in favour. GroenLinks, SP, 50Plus, PvdD and PVV voted against. The Bredenoord (D66) motion was unanimously adopted. The Strik (Green Left) motion was unfortunately rejected. The law is likely to come into force on 1 January 2019.