Constant Hijzen in the Volkskrant about the Dutch Review Committee for the Deployment of Powers
On 25 April the Dutch Review Committee for the Deployment of Powers (in Dutch: TIB) presented its first annual report to the First and Second Chamber of the Dutch government. The TIB informs in the annual report on its findings and activities in the period from 1 May 2018 to 1 April 2019. The report shows that the TIB intelligence services regularly dropped back since the introduction of the Intelligence and Security Services Act.
The intelligence services seem to be concerned about the rejections: in recent months the TIB has refused fewer of such requests. The Dutch AIVD, in particular, is showing improvement, the Committee writes. This can be concluded from the figures: the AIVD and MIVD jointly submitted 2,159 requests. 5.8 percent of the requests from the MIVD were rejected, with the AIVD this was 4.5 percent of the requests. In many cases the privacy violation would not be proportionate to the necessity, in other cases, the TIB did not find it sufficiently clear why an objective could not be achieved with lighter means.
Critical note
Constant Hijzen, assistant professor of Intelligence Studies at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, is critical to these figures ‘We cannot judge how things are going. We must rely on what the regulators report. On that basis, the services seem to deal precisely with their special powers.’
Reflection moment
According to Hijzen, one of the most useful contributions from the TIB seems to be the extra moment of reflection that it incorporates. ‘The intelligence services are forced to argue why a proposed means is proportional to them and why lighter alternatives are not sufficient. An extra moment of thought has been added’.
Read the full article at the Volkskrant website (Dutch).