Dutch Ministry Proposes Powers for Police to Hack into Computers

The Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security has proposed some rather over the line measures and wants to extend such powers to the police that would allow them to break into computers and mobile phones in any part of the world.

According to the proposal [PDF] (in Dutch), dated October 15, the ministry has asked for powers that would allow police to not only break into computers but, would also allow them to install spyware, search for data in those computers and destroy data.

As explained by the digital rights group ‘Bits of Freedom’, which obtained the copy of the proposal, if the Dutch police gets such powers the security of computer users would be lessened and that there will be a “perverse incentive to keep information security weak.”

Another take is that millions of computers would be less secured as Government might not push companies to publish vulnerabilities on one hand and won’t encourage public to patch their systems on time on the other because it might want to exploit those vulnerabilities for its own purpose.

As much as this law is bad for the people, it is more so for the Dutch government as “other governments would be very interested in using such a power against Dutch interests.”

(Original article at ParityNews.com)