The secret services AIVD and MIVD must destroy five large data sets that they consider important for national security. These have been preserved for too long, the Complaints Committee of the Supervision of the Intelligence and Security Services (CTVID) ruled on Wednesday.
The decision was made on the basis of a complaint filed by civil rights organization Bits of Freedom last summer NRC†
The secret services say that the datasets containing data of possibly millions of citizens are of great importance for their investigation. In 2020, the regulator already recommended destroying the datasets after a number of hacks. But the services opposed this, because of the importance of the investigation into the protection of national security.
A new regulation stated that the data could be kept for as long as necessary. But only on the condition that the data was re-evaluated every year for relevance. But research shows that the services are not following these new rules. For these five datasets, the relevance was assessed too late and access was not restricted for some, when it should have been.
The AIVD and MIVD are given two weeks to destroy the datasets. Nothing is known about the nature and size of the datasets. The Ministry of the Interior will issue a response to the committee’s ruling on Wednesday.