Samenvatting

This year, the new Dutch Intelligence and Security Services Act (Wiv 2017) will come into force. It’s most controversial part is the untargeted bulk interception of internet and telephone cables, where previously this was only allowed for wireless communication links. Since June 2013, the Snowden revelations led to a fear for mass surveillance of ordinary citizens by NSA and GCHQ. The original documents however show that their collection programs are actually focused at valid foreign intelligence targets. Where the British and Americans have online and realtime filtering systems, the Dutch will store the communications from untargeted cable interception for up to three years. Also the Dutch will lack the opportunity of XKEYSCORE to find anonymous internet communications, as they will select content just as targeted as is the case with traditional wiretaps. Therefore, the main improvement for Dutch intelligence appears to be a much greater access to metadata