Monthly update on human rights & tech: May 2023
Government bans TikTok (sort of), Facebook has a bad day in court, and civil society organizations mobilize against Big Tech: a quick read through the most interesting developments at the intersection of human rights and technology from the Netherlands. This is the third in a series.
Parliament moves to discuss new mass surveillance bill despite important parts missing
On April 5th, Parliament heard the secret services, former oversight officials, academics and Bits of Freedom on the topic of newly proposed changes to the secret services’ mass surveillance powers. Unfortunately, and really quite bizarrely, the text Parliament is to discuss, is only part of the bill that the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defense want to pass. The part of the text that has been made available to Parliament contains what measures the secret services are allowed to take to intercept information. The parts that are still missing, but which the ministers have promised can be expected any day, look at what can and cannot be done with that information.
What we’re focusing on? We want the government to place limits on when the secret services can hack devices without having to obtain prior permission, and we want to prevent one oversight body (TIB) from losing its powers, and make sure the other (CTIVD) receives binding powers. We also urged Parliament to stand up for itself and pause the proceedings until the full bill has been made available to them.
We still see a misalignment between the Minister’s intentions regarding AI, and the execution of those intentions.
Dutch position on the AI Act is looking promising
The Minister of Digitization has given a bit of an insight into the Dutch position in the European negotiations on the AI Act. We’re pleased to see many of our concerns reflected. The minister emphasizes, among other things, the importance of human rights impact assessments, transparency, the right for people to know they’ve been subjected to automated systems and the right to meaningful redress mechanisms. Of course, as long as algorithm oversight is massively underfunded, and law enforcement algorithms are exempt from having to be included in the government’s algorithm register, we still see a misalignment between the Minister’s intentions regarding AI, and the execution of those intentions. To be continued!
Find out more about our work, who we are & how we’re funded.
New bill for security coordinator reflects civil society concerns
In 2021, journalists uncovered that the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) had been illegally spying on people. Rather than penalize the coordinator for abusing her power, the Minister of Justice and Security rewarded the NCTV with a bill expanding its capacities. Essentially, the bill proposed intelligence powers, and, if that weren’t bad enough, neglected to propose accompanying intelligence oversight.
After spotlighting these risks and the anti-democratic haste with which the minister tried to push through the bill, we also contributed to mobilizing critical voices from within all stakeholder groups. And it paid off! The latest version of the text, published by the ministry this month, seems to reflect our concerns and reiterates that the NCTV is meant to coordinate intelligence gathering, not participate in surveillance itself. Although we’re beyond pleased to see the direction the bill has taken, there’s still a bit of work to be done to make sure the text leaves no room for doubt about where the boundaries of the NCTV’s powers lie.
And finally…
The Research and Documentation Center finally published its report into the effects of encryption on law enforcement. It’s an interesting read, taking into account not only the difficulties posed by encryption, but also the ‘benefits’, and concluding that encryption might not mean the end of effective policing, after all. (Who knew!) Finally, we were shocked to read about discriminating algorithms being used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in visa application processes, despite repeated warnings from the ministry’s data protection officer, who has since resigned.
Receive this update in your inbox
Want to receive a heads-up when another monthly update is published? Leave your e-mail address behind and we’ll drop you a line whenever a new update becomes available. We’ll not use your e-mail address for any other purposes.