38C3 - Data misuse: Dutch police turn activists into terrorists
The activist Van der Linde was classified as an extremist in a Dutch police database and reported to Europol and other agencies as a terrorist.
Frank van der Linde stands opposite a Dutch police patrol car during one of his protest actions and holds a sign with the words "Respecteer onze rechten en de Wet" ("Respect our rights and our law") up to the police officers.
(Image: [Link auf https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_van_der_Linde#/media/Bestand:Frank_van_der_Linde.jpg])
Frank van der Linde has been a high-profile activist in the Netherlands for years. In October 2019, he found out that the Dutch authorities had not only been monitoring his activities since 2013, but had also temporarily categorized him as a "terrorist" and reported him to other authorities.
Van der Linde described his story and the battle over how the authorities handled his data under the title "Police 2.0: Peaceful activism is terrorism and fake news is fact" at the 38th Chaos Communication Congress.
Van der Linde worked for NGOs for years before becoming a full-time activist. He campaigns for the rights of migrants and the homeless, against institutional racism and for climate protection and against cruelty to animals. In the course of his actions and demonstrations, which also include sit-ins, he has frequent contact with the police and other authorities. In Amsterdam in particular, he was and is known for his one-man protests.
In 2016, he lost his apartment in the Netherlands and was initially without a fixed place of residence. He moved to Berlin in 2018. He was told by a whistleblower that the police had stored data on him. Van der Linde then filed an application in the Netherlands in 2018 to obtain information about the stored data.
In the course of his persistent investigations and complaints, he discovered that his data had not only been stored by the Dutch police, but had also been shared with various other authorities (judiciary, municipality, intelligence services) within the Netherlands.
The Dutch government has taken a number of measures to combat terrorism, including a national database, data sharing and the monitoring of suspects.
Van der Linde was entered in the CTER (Contraterrorisme, Extremisme en Radicalisering) in 2018. Specifically, he was listed as "CTER 04 subject", which is the catalog entry for "extreme left-wing activist".
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Data transfer as a terrorist to Europol
The Dutch police also sent his data to Europol in 2018. The Europol system SIENA (Secure Information Exchange Network Application) is used for police data exchange. In the report to Europol, the Dutch police simply selected the category "terrorism" from the catalog of types of crime in the Van der Linde case and specified "CT-AP Dolphin" as the recipient. This is a counter-terrorism analysis project designed to identify the activities of terrorist groups that pose a "serious threat" to security and other violent and extremist groups and to uncover their networks.
The subsequent deletion of data has confirmed that Van der Linde's known actions do not fall under the EU definition of terrorism, and that no other value from the catalog is eligible for data transfer and storage.
As justification for this classification in SIENA, the Amsterdam police informed Van der Linde in a letter in January 2023 (PDF):
"The category 'crime area terrorism' was chosen because there was no more suitable option in the system. The selection did not reflect that you are linked to terrorism, but referred to your classification as a CTER subject (subject of the 'Counter-terrorism, extremism and radicalization' department). The messages make it clear through project labels such as 'AP Dolphin' that they concern forms of extremism (far-left or far-right) and not terrorism."
Europol as a data hub
Data is exchanged via Europol to support law enforcement authorities in preventing and combating organized and serious crime and terrorism. Europol serves as a data hub, but in certain cases also stores data itself in its databases and passes on personal data to third countries and third parties.
As of April 2024, over 3,000 law enforcement authorities from more than 70 countries and international organizations are connected to SIENA. Van der Linde's data record was also forwarded to INTERPOL due to the terrorism categorization, but was rejected as irrelevant after examination and deleted. The person concerned learned this in the course of his inquiries.
A notification was also sent to the BKA in Germany by the Netherlands. The Dutch public prosecutor's office cannot understand the exact reason for the data transfer in 2021 due to documents no longer being available. It is suspected that Van der Linde's classification is linked to his stay/residence in Germany at the time. Upon request, the BKA informed Van der Linde in 2020 that no data on him is currently stored in INPOL.
