74 berichten
English
Dutch House of Representatives passes dragnet surveillance bill
On February 14, 2017 the bill for the new Intelligence and Security Services Act was passed by the Dutch lower house. Despite being met with serious opposition from experts, regulators, civil society, political parties and citizens, the revised bill passed virtually unchanged from the proposal submitted to the lower house. It’s beyond disappointing that a bill with such momentous consequences is rushed through the lower house with such relentless determination.
Recap of the Dutch Big Brother Awards 2016: serious and funny
An anonymous country singer, the watchdog-walking service and the I-have-nothing-to-hide musical. These were just a few ingredients by theatre producers and performers Oscar Kocken and Daan Windhorst. Just add a crash course ‘Lying with charts’, a few tasteful awards, and you have a very funny and serious ceremony about privacy. Check out the video.
Open Whisper Systems at the Dutch Big Brother Awards
Open Whisper Systems was awarded the Felipe Rodriguez award at the twelfth edition of Dutch Big Brother Awards. This award, given to people and organisations who have been invaluable for protecting and advancing privacy, was given to Open Whisper Systems for their work on Signal and the Signal protocol. They have managed to secure the […]
Head of Dutch security service is fed up with privacy concerns
Will people who value privacy know that they allowed a terrorist attack to take place? Rob Bertholee, head of the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands (AIVD) made this and other bold statements in a revealing interview, clearly showing his frustration about legitimate privacy concerns.
The lobby-tomy 9: lessons of the lobby. What will the Netherlands do?
The new European privacy law was a feast for lobbyists, but how did the Dutch government deal with all that information? And is lobbying bad?
The lobby-tomy 8: anti-fraud! The other magic word
Anti-fraud is an important argument for less privacy protection. Insurance companies, banks, and lenders use it to get access to data.
The lobby-tomy 7: not all roads lead to privacy
Within the privacy world, different schools of thought exist. Connecting different viewpoints to a seemingly positive ideology is also a persuasion strategy.
The lobby-tomy 5: legal help or political choices?
Is legal help always objective? Writing laws is a complicated process. A frequently used lobby strategy involves offering “legal help” and arguments that promise legal certainty. Parties claim to make no substantive choices for policy makers, but is that really the case?
The lobby-tomy 4: Innovation is the magic word
If there is one term that seems to be popular in the current political climate, it’s “innovation.” Lobbying is about convincing policy makers of the importance of your position. But is innovation really a good argument?
The lobby-tomy 3: who are lobbying?
Did you know that there are 340,000 dentists in Europe? And that they lobby about privacy? Who else lobbies? How do parties/groups create coalitions to persuade policy makers? What’s the mayor of Amsterdam doing in Brussels? In this blog on the privacy lobby we describe the different parties that are lobbying.
The lobby-tomy 2: What was the lobbying about?
What do companies really think about privacy protection? Publicly everybody thinks privacy is important, but do they think the same thing behind closed doors? What were the hot issues during the lobby and did everybody treat privacy protection well?
Data Protection Lobby-tomy 1: Influencing the Dutch government
The new European data protection regulation is the most lobbied piece of legislation in Europe thus far because the subject is very important and touches upon almost every aspect of our daily lives. That’s why we used the Dutch freedom of information act to ask the government to publicize all the lobby documents they received […]
Translation of current Dutch net neutrality provisions
Last week, the Dutch parliament approved a proposal from the government that prohibits zero rating. The vote is in accordance with the country’s history of upholding strong net neutrality law. What was the proposal exactly?
EDRi puts members in the spotlights
European Digital Rights (EDRi) is an association of civil and human rights organisations from across Europe. They do a wonderful job in defending rights and freedoms in the digital environment in the Brussels maze. In the series “EDRi-Member in the Spotlight” members have the opportunity to introduce themselves and their work in depth. We were […]
Press release: Dutch government prohibits price discrimination for internet access
The Dutch Lower House has approved a proposal from the government to prohibit zero rating. Zero rating is when telecom operators do not charge end customers for data used by specific applications or internet services but charge them for others. The Netherlands’ vote is in accordance with the country’s history of upholding strong net neutrality […]