Funny enough, nobody really knows. Although the new Hack Law has been announced by the government, the Dutch House of Representatives still has to approve.
What is known, that the police should have extensive leeway to hack suspects as part of the broader picture to fight terrorism. Furthermore, the threshold for allowing police hacking should be low in order for it to be effective.
However, some academics, such as Professor Nico van Eijk, reason that hacking is not really an anti-terrorism measure. (Personally, I disagree).
De Dutch intelligence services AIVD and MIVD that are fighting terrorism, are already allowed to hack. Therefore, granting the same rights to the police would just be an extension of an existing and accepted practice.
It is not clear yet what the parameters for hacking by the police will be. Funny enough, the proposed concept is already two years old; the threshold for tapping into Internet and telephone traffic is therefore far from new.
Opponents of the concept law claim that the police could use security vulnerabilities in software on the devices of suspects. That might be true, but security vulnerabilities could also be used by hackers; just compare it to a faulty lock on your windows that allows crooks as well as the police to easily enter your premises.
Will the concept law pass? Quite likely, considering the recent attacks in Paris and Beirut.
This blog post was written by Debra De-Jong of Tip Top Lawyer
