Bill to provide legal basis for processing of personal data by NCTV sent to House of Representatives
On the recommendation of Minister Grapperhaus of Security and Justice, the Council of Ministers has agreed to a bill to provide a legal basis for the processing of personal data for the purposes of coordination and analysis in the context of counterterrorism and national security. Today, this bill was sent to the House of Representatives for debate. The bill will ensure that a number of tasks of the National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) are enshrined in law.
It can be necessary for the NCTV to process personal data (including special categories of personal data) in order to increase resilience in relation to combating terrorism and protecting national security. The purpose of increasing the resilience of society is to be able to adequately counter threats and risks. This is done by coordinating policy (including its implementation) and the measures in the area of counterterrorism and national security to be taken in this respect. In addition, this concerns the task to draw up analyses of trends and phenomena in this context, such as the Terrorist Threat Assessment Netherlands.
As Minister Grapperhaus noted previously, these tasks of the NCTV need to be enshrined in law to enable the processing of personal data that is necessary to perform these tasks. This concerns personal data, such as the names and residential address details of jihadists who have returned to the Netherlands from Syria, but also the processing of personal data necessary to draw up analyses of phenomena and other analyses. In light of the processing of such personal data, the bill contains various measures to limit personal data processing and to protect personal data.
As is common practice for such important bills, a consultation round was held, in which the Dutch Data Protection Authority was asked for an opinion on the bill, after which the Council of State also issued an opinion. In response to these opinions, additional safeguards were included in the bill. The bill now clearly demarcates the tasks of the NCTV, those of the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), and those of the police.