Dutch government to allow police to tap conversations on Skype
Legislation an effort to close ‘massive technical loophole’
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The Netherlands recently raised its alert level for terrorist attacks from “limited” to the second highest level, “substantial”, as a result of increasing links between Islamic militants here and in Syria – and the domestic intelligence service, AIVD, has increased its surveillance of suspect networks.
The National Counterterrorism Co-ordinator
revealed that as many as 100 young men had recently travelled to Africa
and the Middle East, particularly Syria, and said: “These jihadist
travellers can return highly radicalised, traumatised, and with a strong
desire to commit violence, thus posing a significant threat to this
country.”
The proposal to allow the tapping of Skype and
other VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocols) services is contained in
draft legislation which will look at computer-related crime in general,
following a string of DDos (distributed denial-of-service) attacks last
month which left key banking services paralysed.
The legislation would allow police to hack into
suspects’ computers – even servers outside the Netherlands – to disable
“botnets”, networks of computers that are being used to bombard systems
with information, spread viruses or steal login details. It would also
force anyone suspected of terrorist or child pornography offences, for
example, to hand over their passwords and encryption details or face
jail. And it would make buying stolen computer information a criminal
offence.
“Many of these provisions would only be used
under strict conditions and supervision – and would have to be approved
first by a judge,” said the justice minister, Ivo Opstelten.
Eurojust, the EU’s judicial co-operation
agency, based in The Hague, is working on ways “to overcome the
technical and judicial obstacles to the interception of internet
telephone systems” in line with the data protection laws of the 27
member states.
“Bringing internet telephone into line with
calls on landlines and mobile phones could be the price we have to pay
for our security,” said a spokesperson.
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