Message service eMates, with which detainees can communicate with the outside world, was shut down by Minister Frank Weerwind (Legal Protection) on Monday. He did this after the Public Prosecution Service had sounded the alarm about unscreened messages, including those of top criminal Ridouan Taghi from the Extra Secure Institution (EBI) in Vught.
The Public Prosecution Service will report this if requested NRC† Taghi would sometimes have sent ‘dozens of messages’ via eMates every day. The Public Prosecution Service discovered Taghi’s use of eMates in the investigation of his cousin and lawyer Youssef T., who was arrested on a visit to the EBI in October. According to the OM, he participated in an escape attempt by Ridouan Taghi.
eMates
Messaging service eMates was launched in the Netherlands in 2013 and has grown rapidly. The service is available in all prisons and detention centers. According to eMates, 200,000 messages are sent every year.
Family members and friends can create an account with eMates and then send an email (at 45 cents) to a detainee. It is also possible to add a photo (at 30 cents).
The messages are printed in prison by prison staff and handed over, sometimes even on the day they are sent.
Certain prisons, including the PI Vught, also support the ‘answering service’ (at 30 cents). In addition, the detainee receives an answer sheet at his ‘post’ that can be written on by hand and then scanned back to the original sender.
Undetermined time
Minister Weerwind shut down eMates indefinitely on Monday. In a letter to the House of Representatives, the minister lists a laundry list of objections: there is no contract at all between the Judicial Institutions Service (DJI) and eMates, there is no insight into how eMates processes privacy-sensitive information and who has access to it at eMates.
As with regular mail, prison staff are allowed to check the content of the eMates messages. But according to the Public Prosecution Service, too many messages are sent and the ‘supervision of this is under pressure’, writes Weerwind. According to the Public Prosecution Service, this poses a significant risk of continued criminal activity within the prison.