The AIVD is inundated with requests from citizens to check whether the intelligence and security service keeps track of and stores information about them. Since the end of August it was announced that the service was collecting and updating information about the journalist Stella Braam, 180 requests have been received. „As much as it total number of requests from last year,” said the spokesman for the service.
Citizens who want to know what information the AIVD has about them will receive a letter from the service. It states that the processing of the request has been delayed. “After a call in the media, the number of access requests has increased considerably,” the service said. Some employees are involved in the processing. Expansion is underway, the letter said.
Braam’s three-hundred-page AIVD file, three-quarters of which had been painted off, showed that the service had been collecting information about the journalist since 1986. Braam reported on the far-right Turkish organization Gray Wolves in the Netherlands. The service was looking for “criminal antecedents” of Braam and is said to have approached an investigator who worked with her with questions about her.
Read: AIVD kept an eye on investigative journalist for 35 years – and had a roommate spy on her
The recent requests to the AIVD for inspection come from activists, among others. There, mistrust grew about the information that the government stores. For example, it was announced last year that counter-terrorism NCTV was illegally following activists on social media. After that, the NGO Amnesty assisted activists in their request to the NCTV for openness. “We requested to specify which publications are collected and stored by the NCTV,” said an Amnesty spokesperson. In some cases, this resulted in overviews of tweets and other publications. “The people involved found it shocking to see how the government is dealing with concerned citizens in the name of national security.”