Dutch Police to Get Power to Collect and Store Public Social Media Data Under New Bill

The Dutch cabinet has approved a legislative proposal that would give police new powers to collect and store personal data from publicly accessible parts of the internet, including social media platforms. The bill, called the Wet gegevensvergaring openbare orde, was approved by the ministerial council on 27 March and will now go to the Council of State for advice before being put to parliament.

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What the law changes

Under current rules, police are already permitted to look at publicly available online sources, but are not allowed to collect or store information from them. The new bill gives police two additional powers: to collect personal data from the public part of the internet, and to gather online data from individuals and their public accounts, if there is a suspicion that those individuals play a significant role in a potential serious disruption of public order.

Police would exercise these powers under the authority and responsibility of the mayor. The mayor would need prior authorisation from an examining magistrate before the powers can be deployed. The bill also contains a strict regime for how collected personal data may be processed.

Why the cabinet says this is needed

Justice and Security Minister David van Weel said many demonstrations and riots that get out of hand are organised online. He pointed specifically to the Malieveld riots in The Hague last September, when an anti-asylum protest escalated into serious unrest in which police were attacked and the D66 party office was targeted. "Serious disruptions of public order are increasingly being incited and organised via social media and other online platforms," Van Weel said. He called it frustrating that police cannot currently use publicly available information, and said the bill would "bring the police into the 21st century."

The bill does not cover closed groups or private accounts. The cabinet has said it wants to extend the powers to closed groups in the future, but that this is still being worked on. Van Weel described it as "the next step."

The Data Protection Authority's concerns

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, AP) assessed an earlier version of the proposal and raised significant objections. AP chair Aleid Wolfsen acknowledged the importance of maintaining public order, but warned the bill as written does not offer people sufficient protection.

Wolfsen said: "This proposal opens the door too wide for large-scale and untargeted online monitoring of citizens. Without clear demarcation, police could in theory pull in the entire internet, including sensitive information about innocent citizens, without those citizens knowing. That is a far-reaching intrusion into someone's life and freedom, and goes much further than what is necessary and therefore permitted."

The AP's specific criticism is that the bill does not clearly enough specify which online sources the automated police system may search, what kind of system may be used, or how far back into a person's history police may look. The risk is that automated tools such as crawlers and scrapers could draw in an expanding range of sources, including sensitive information about people who are not under any suspicion.

The AP stressed that the bill is designed to allow police to signal potential public order disruptions in advance, by collecting and processing information about people on a large, automated scale, without those people being aware of it, and without them being suspected of any offence.

What happens next

The proposal now goes to the Council of State for advice. After that, both the Tweede Kamer and the Eerste Kamer must consider and vote on it before it can become law.