big data

The government's plans on how to change the new law for the Dutch intelligence services after a majority voted against it in a referendum, leaked on Thursday night. The changes are "mostly cosmetic" and don't do justice the results of the advisory referendum, according to privacy organization Bits of Freedom, NOS reports.

A majority of Dutch voted against the new law for the Dutch intelligence and security services, the Electoral Council officially announced on Thursday. In total 49.4 percent voted against the law, 46.5 percent voted for it, and 4 percent cast a blank vote, NU.nl reports.

52 percent of Dutch voters voted in the referendum, far above the 30 percent minimum turnout required for the referendum to be valid. 

With 80 percent of the votes in the referendum on whether or not to implement a new law for the Dutch intelligence and security services counted, opponents to the law are taking the lead. Of the counted votes, 49 percent were against the law, and 47 percent for. Around 4 percent of the votes were blank, the Volkskrant reports.

Around 53 percent of voters voted in the referendum, far above the 30 percent required for the referendum to be valid. 

Today around 13 million Dutch can vote in a referendum on whether or not to implement a new law for intelligence services AIVD and MIVD. Polling stations opened at 7:30 a.m. and most will remain open until 9:00 p.m.

Amnesty International strongly criticized several European Union member states, including the Netherlands, in its annual yearbook that was presented on Thursday. According to the organization, human rights are under pressure in the EU, ANP reports.

"In countries like Poland and Hungary, the rule of law is being eroded even further. But also in France and in the Netherlands, human rights are no longer always a matter of course", the human rights organization said with the publication of its Yearbook 2017-2018.

The Dutch government is postponing the implementation of the new data mining law for the intelligence and security services. Minister Kasja Ollongren of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations will send a letter to the Tweede Kamer on Wednesday to inform them that it will not be possible to appoint a supervisory committee before the law was set to take effect on January 1st, NOS reports.

A petition for a referendum on a new law that gives the Dutch intelligence services massive data mining capabilities, collected over 300 thousand signatures - the number necessary for an advisory referendum to be arranged. The Electoral Council must still check the validity of the signatures. Should they all prove valid, the referendum will be arranged during the municipal elections in March next year, NU.nl reports. 

A group of Amsterdam students collected 10 thousand signatures for a referendum on a new data mining law, which the Dutch Senate adopted in July. That is the first milestone on organizing an advisory referendum on the new Intelligence and Security Services Act, RTL Z reports. 

Dutch intelligence services AIVD and MIVD violated multiple rules in the period between October 2015 and March 2016 when eavesdropping on conversations with lawyers and journalists, according to the body that oversees the services CTIVD, the Volkskrant reports. 

The AIVD illegally eavesdropped on three conversations between a target and his or her lawyer, according to the CTIVD. This involved "indirect tapping" - the AIVD was listening in on conversations of a suspected terrorist and in doing so als listened to conversations the suspect had with a lawyer. 

The lower house of Dutch parliament is debating a new data mining law that will give the Dutch intelligence services AIVD and MIVD the power to intercept data streams on large scales. The expectation is that the law will be voted in, as a majority in parliament already revealed support for the law, AD reports.

A fifth of Dutch companies with at least 10 employees analyze so-called Big Data - large amounts of unstructured data, according to Statistics Netherlands. This often involves analysis of their own data, but one in 10 companies also analyze data from outside the company.

Big data analysis is more common in large companies than smaller ones. About 15 percent of companies with between 10 and 20 employees do it, compared to 42 percent of companies with 500 or more employees.