The Socialist Party (SP) questions why the government and other government agencies store and process tweets and other public messages on social media. The party wonders why various government agencies are allowed to do this, while the NCTV is not. Further, the group is curious if and with which agencies the data collected is shared.
This is according to written questions (1) by Renske Leijten (SP) to Alexandra van Huffelen, the state secretary for digitization.
Earlier this month, Trouw, iBestuur & Binnenlands Bestuur and AG Connect wrote that the Dutch government was secretly collecting messages and reactions from Dutch Twitter users (2). In this way, the government wanted to find out how citizens think about government policy. In addition to public opinions, government agencies also collected special personal data such as religious beliefs, ethnicity, sexual preference and political views.
Among others, the Social and Cultural Planning Office (SCP), the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW) and the Ministry of Agriculture gauged what feelings were alive in society by collecting tweets.
Privacy experts were skeptical of the administration's approach. They told that the government has no legal basis to collect and study tweets on a large scale. Professor of ICT and Private Law at Radboud University Nijmegen Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius stressed that it is a misunderstanding to think that the General Data Protection Regulation (AVG) would not apply to public information.
Lower House member Renske Leijten (SP) wants to know what is going on and has therefore put a number of questions on paper. She asks State Secretary Van Huffelen on what legal basis the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, the NVWA and the Tax Authority are allowed to store and process public messages on social media (3).
In April 2021, NRC discovered that the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) collected (4) and shared information about prominent Dutch citizens for years. Employees of the service were instructed to use fake accounts to follow hundreds of political campaign leaders, religious leaders and left-wing and right-wing activists on social media. Workers had to find out if and to whom they were married, how many children they had and who they hung out with. The conclusion was that monitoring the NCTV was legally complex (5).
Leijten wants to hear from the secretary of state what the difference is between the storage and processing of data by ministries and other government agencies, and the storage and processing of data by the NCTV, "where the cabinet has already determined that this was not legally permissible."
The SP's left no doubt that she considers it undesirable for the government to store and process citizens' data without informing them about it. State Secretary Van Huffelen should explain whether she thinks it is necessary to collect and study people's data on this scale. Furthermore, the MP asks whether there are more government agencies that collect citizens' data on a large scale and share the relevant data with other bodies or agencies.
"In what way are collected personal data and profiles created stored and applied?", Leijten wants to know from State Secretary Van Huffelen. The MP wonders aloud to what extent statements made on social media are a good and reliable gauge of what prevails in society, in relation to the revenue model of these platforms, where algorithms determine what users get to see.
What the SP'er is also curious about is to what extent the Cabinet uses this information to formulate policy. "Do you recognize that the fixation on social media expressions can produce a distorted picture of problems that are occurring or to what extent problems are occurring, as well as failure to identify other problems?" Finally, Leijten asked if the secretary of state could answer the questions before the note discussion on the digital affairs budget.
https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/kamervragen/detail?id=2022Z19979&did=2022D42920
https://www.vpngids.nl/nieuws/overheid-verzamelt-stiekem-tweets-van-burgers/
https://www.vpngids.nl/privacy/social-media/
https://www.vpngids.nl/nieuws/kamer-wil-opheldering-over-spionagepraktijken-nctv/
https://www.vpngids.nl/nieuws/toezicht-op-nctv-is-juridisch-complex/
