Dutch DPA says government's data retention plans still illegal

The Netherlands' Data Protection Authority has criticised that government's proposed data retention legislation. The government put forward amendments to its data retention regime in response to the April 2014 European Court of Justice decision that invalidated the EU's Data Retention Directive (along the way causing trouble …

[DryBones]

All I want to know...

Can we vote THESE guys into office in the US?

[Christian Berger]

The Dutch had a special problem with storing data

Back, just before WWII they had a census. It already was on punch cards and included one, back then harmless, question: "Religion".

When the Germans marched in, all they had to do was to throw the punch cards into a sorter and sort out all Jews. With a collator they were able to get all the addresses which they could also print out easily.

Even data which may seem harmless at the moment can be abused in horrible ways as long as it exists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Dutch had a special problem with storing data

Even data which may seem harmless at the moment can be abused in horrible ways as long as it exists.

.. and more data follows the statistical rule of "given enough data, you can prove anything". Personally, I wonder if giving more education in the principles of statistics (so people can distinguish facts from probabilities) is quietly being classed as a subversive activity in its own right.

[WraithCadmus]

Re: The Dutch had a special problem with storing data

If you have the time in Amsterdam it's worth visiting the Dutch Resistance Museum, they helped correct this particular nastiness by burning down the records office, thus IDs couldn't be compared with central records and thus allowing fakes to work more reliably.

It does drive home the point that you have to build your system so that future users can't abuse it either.

Icon: Punch cards, with a bit of help