Police: Big data solved street assassinations

The abolition of the data retention obligation of telephone and internet data is "seriously" impeding the investigation into the series of gang related assassinations in and around Amsterdam. This is according to Jeroen van Berkel, the prosecutor that coordinates all assassination cases in and around Amsterdam, in an interview with the Volkskrant. According to Van Berkel, If the decision on data retention is not changed, "we accept that the next assassination case will not be solvable." The verdict in the lawsuit against Benaouf A., the first one convicted in the series of assassination cases, was based largely on mast and telecom data, camera data that determines car location and internet traffic regarding car rentals. "Without such data it is very difficult, if not impossible, to map the network of such defendants." Van Berkel said to the newspaper. "In the assassination cases we face silent suspects who do everything they can to stay out of sight of the police. Then communication data is crucial for detection." On March 11th, the court in the Hague ruled that internet providers and telecom companies no longer have to store communications data. According to the court, the importance of privacy outweighs the need for the information and the judge scrapped the law that required companies to retain data. In the verdict, the judge stressed that the scrapping of this law "can have far-reaching consequences" for the detection and prosecution of criminal offenses. According to the Volkskrant, the Public Prosecutor has compiled a list of 130 criminal cases in which communication data was crucial for a conviction. These involve serious offenses, such as rape, murder, human trafficking and extortion. Serious criminals that pose a significant danger to society that would never have been convicted without, for example, their internet history.