Support Our Work Mailing list About / Contact

Civil liberties - in brief (1)

01 July 1997

Support our work: become a Friend of Statewatch from as little as £1/€1 per month.

Netherlands: Prison telephone tapping banned: The Geniepoort prison in Alphen aan den Rijn has temporarily stopped recording telephone conversations made by prisoners. Lawyers acting for the prisoners had earlier discovered that all telephone conversations made by prisoners were routinely being recorded and had asked for a judicial review. When queried the Dutch Ministry of Justice admitted that all new prisons were now being equipped with telephone tapping systems. NRC Handelsblad Weekeditie 29.7.97

Netherlands: E-Mail not covered by confidentiality law: The Dutch Ministry of Justice recently declared that e-mail is not covered by laws that protect the confidentiality of letters. According to the ministry e-mail will be treated in the same way as postcards, which have no protection in law as they are not sealed in envelopes. According to Joop Verbeek, a Researcher for the Nationaal Programma Informatietechnologie en Recht, the consequences of this decision would be that any person could access other peoples' e-mail without any fear of either criminal or civil proceedings being taken against them. This subject arose with the discovery that some football hooligans are using e-mail to communicate with each other. The ministry of Justice now plans to use these e-mail communications as evidence in forthcoming trials. NRC Handelsblad Weekeditie, 29.7.97.

Our work is only possible with your support.
Become a Friend of Statewatch from as little as £1/€1 per month.

 Previous article

EU: Peace train

Next article 

UK: Kani Yilmaz extradited

 

Spotted an error? If you've spotted a problem with this page, just click once to let us know.

Report error

Statewatch does not have a corporate view, nor does it seek to create one, the views expressed are those of the author. Statewatch is not responsible for the content of external websites and inclusion of a link does not constitute an endorsement. Registered UK charity number: 1154784. Registered UK company number: 08480724. Registered company name: The Libertarian Research & Education Trust. Registered office: MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH. © Statewatch ISSN 1756-851X. Personal usage as private individuals "fair dealing" is allowed. We also welcome links to material on our site. Usage by those working for organisations is allowed only if the organisation holds an appropriate licence from the relevant reprographic rights organisation (eg: Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK) with such usage being subject to the terms and conditions of that licence and to local copyright law.

About | Contact | Privacy Policy