‘Hack back by the police is a danger for the integrity of lawsuits’

If the police computers of the suspects, penetrates, such as according to a new law would be allowed, that the integrity of judicial proceedings in jeopardy. It is not excluded that the police tamper with evidence. This warns professor of computer security Bart Jacobs.

According to Jacobs, there is a big difference between other forms of surveillance and the intrusion of the computer of a suspect. “Searches of vehicles is passive,” said Jacobs during the RSA security conference in the RAI in Amsterdam. “If you have a computer breaks, it is very difficult to remain passive. As soon as you log in, change the log files, so you have already changed something.” At this moment there is a bill that, for the police makes it possible to break in to computers to gather evidence and possibly criminal activities to disrupt. The bill must still by the Second and First Chamber to be approved.

The ict professor, who is linked to the Radboud University of Nijmegen, is afraid that the integrity of judicial proceedings in jeopardy. “How do I know that the police, nothing changes on the computer?”, asks Jacobs. “You can actually know for sure?” According to Jacobs will every lawyer, that argument also seize if the police evidence gathers through hacks. “And it is very difficult for the police to you by chance to defend himself,” says Jacobs. “We should ponder before we enter it,” he says. Jacobs can imagine that the terughack-power is used for the disrupting of criminal activities.

Peter Zinn, cybercrime advisor to the National Police, does not agree with Jacobs. “We get accusations that we are drugs in people, in their pockets,” says Zinn. According to the cybercrime adviser, it is a matter of trust in the police. Also the head of cybercrime, and Europol, Troels Oerting, think that hack back should be possible. “I can you as a policeman lock your computer, get hold of your testicles, and I even allowed people to shoot,” said Oerting. The hacking of suspects would no foreign power, he says.

Jacobs is in addition to the privacy. Oerting of Europol waves that away. “Privacy, we find also important, but in the real world, this also may,” he says, “If I the plane of entry, I also need my belt off and I searched.” That considers also the advisor of the police, Peter Zinn. “If you’re not suspicious, you’re not followed,” he says. “Well, if you are a suspect. But that is our job,” said Zinn. He also stresses that everything is transparent to expire. “Everything will be logged,” says Zinn.

Jacobs notes that the government in the implementation of the law that the interception of phone calls, was assured that the law only rarely would be used. “And now we are the country that has the most aftapt,” says Jacobs. According to professor Jacobs, the debate is ‘framed’. “The police are doing if they are with the back against the wall, surrounded by evil criminals, who the police from all sides trying to attack,” he says. “Then we must get the poor police officer still help?”, does he.