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Holland: image of security services

01 January 1991

Holland: image of security services
artdoc February=1994

Market research bureau NSS/Marktonderzoek BV has done a survey
among 799 persons about the public image of the BVD. 71
percent of the respondents had heard of the security service,
although a fifth of these confuse it with the Royal Family's
protection outfit. An earlier survey done in 1989 was never
openly referred to, presumably because the public's opinion about
the BVD's trustworthiness and accountability was shown to be
rather poor.
By disregarding those who indicate not to be familiar with the
BVD, the market bureau succeeds in giving a positive
interpretation of the organization's public image. The low scores
on questions about decisiveness, accountability and modernity
cannot be ignored, but since about seventy percent of those who
know the organization give it the benefit of the doubt on
questions about legality and reliability, and a strong majority
of almost 90 percent believes a security service to be necessary,
the overall conclusion of the bureau's analysts is that the
publicity campaign of the last four years has been successful.