Watchdog again criticises secret services over telephone and internet taps

Intelligence agencies are bracing themselves for Brexit hacks.
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The Dutch civilian and military secret services have again been sharing information with foreign agencies without sticking to the rules, regulator CTIVD said on Tuesday.

The services have been collecting data and sharing it with foreign security services without properly checking what they are handing over, the watchdog said. This is only allowed with ministerial permission, and that has not always been requested.

The watchdog referred to problems involving 12 AIVD projects with foreign security agencies and 10 operated by the military service MIVD.

New Dutch legislation on phone and internet taps gave the government sweeping power to monitor digital traffic and share it abroad on the condition strict rules were met. In particular, taps must be as focused as possible and irrelevant information should be destroyed straight away.

In June, the CTIVD watchdog said the MIVD military security service is still failing to meet the requirements on privacy, partly down to IT problems.

Nevertheless, advances have been made since the CTIVD’s first report, which was highly critical of both services, the agency said.

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