Support Our Work Mailing list About / Contact

Denmark:New university security scandal

01 May 1994

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

In March it was revealed that over a ten year period, ending in 1991, the names, addresses and identity numbers of about 40,000 students at Copenhagen University were illegally given to the Police Intelligence Service (PET).

Lars-Erik Allin, the Legal Advisor to the University Rector, was responsible for security matters until the exposure of his involvement in the first security scandal at the university (the bugging case, see Statewatch vol 4 no 1). Then when he met the new Rector, K Mollgard, in January this year he revealed the wholesale passing of information on students to the PET. The Rector said this was "an unacceptable break in the confidence that any student must have in the university's way of handling personal information in a responsible way".

Prior to the Law on Data Protection (Registerlovgivningen) passed in 1982 lists of students were publicly available, the effect of this law however made the handing over of lists illegal.

The head of PET, Birgette Stampe, told the press that the lists had been used for investigation purposes to confirm peoples" identity and was the same as the telephone book! Confronted with the fact that identity numbers are not in the phone book she replied that PET has access to identity files anyway.

Law Professor, Vagn Greve, of the Institute of Criminology at the University has been asked by the Rector to investigate the matter.

Information, 5 & 6.3.94.

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

 Previous article

Netherlands: Cryptology ban

Next article 

UK: Surveillance warrants: up again

 

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