Telecom disruption turns off hundreds of ankle monitors in Netherlands

A disruption at telecom provider Tele2 over the weekend turned off hundreds of ankle monitors. The disruption started late on Friday morning. By Sunday morning, all ankle monitors were again connected with the control room, the Ministry of Justice and Security said, RTL Nieuws reports.

Around 450 of the approximately 700 active ankle monitors in the Netherlands lost connection with the control room at some point during the disruption. Once the problems were resolved, all the information the monitors stored about their wearers' location during the outage became available. Most monitor wearers did not realize that their monitor was not working, according to the broadcaster.

Where necessary, measures were taken in consultation between the probation service, the agency for custodial institutions DJI, the Public Prosecutor, and the police. For example, some ankle monitor wearers had their unsupervised leave turned into supervised leave to make sure they don't come into contact with their victims.

The DJI and its partners are well prepared for this type of malfunction, Minister Sander Dekker of Legal Protection assured in a letter to parliament. As is standard procedure, this incident will be evaluated. If the evaluation shows that more measures are needed, these will be taken, he said.