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![]() Content Chapter 1, control, made to measure Chapter 2, administrative apartheid Chapter 3,Mobil Surveillance of Foreigners Chapter 4, Own people, first or last? Chapter 5, Exclusion as an ideological instrument ![]() |
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In the current technocratic society more and more functions of
human beings are performed by machines, with as a result a
shift from human to human relations to human-machine rela-
tions. Of information, which arises as an (end)product, it is
not always clear who has access to it and what is done with
it.
In the book 'Het baat niet, maar het schaadt wel', published
in the beginning of 1993, Jan Holvast and Andr‚ Mosshammer
give an outline of the technocratic information-society. "When
looking for solutions, it is primarily directed to technical
solutions. Not the problem is in focus, but the (fake)sol-
ution, by which the impression arises that problems are
sought, for the solution." Holvast and Mosshammer observe 'a
return to the situation of a nightwatch-state, in which the
activities of the state are primarily limited to public order,
security, peace and taxing, in short the sectors where the
emphasis is on control and supervision instead of on human
dignity.' This development has only strengthened in the last
three years. More than ever, registration and control are
presented as the solutions for fraud, criminality and misuse
of welfare facilities. The government and Trade and Industry
want back the overview on the lives of the citizens. Controls
on income, registration of spending, limiting the mobility and
insight in the daily lives and consumption patterns are the
magic words for an all-knowing government.
The integration of modern technology in the whole of the
government apparatus has opened a world of registration,
linking and control, of which the biggest bureaucrats had not
dared dreaming of. The implementation of these mechanisms for
control and exclusion coincide with a retracting government.
Limitation of social security benefit, stripping of health
insurance, the new Act on health insurance for employees,
limitation of the Act on disability insurance, a strict asy-
lumpolicy, exclusion of illegal foreigners: a small selection
of the governmentpolicy of the last few years.
The new technology and registrations also make the policies
really feasible. Even worse, politicians bolt when thinking of
the possibilities of these technologies. Exclusion and control
are presented as the solutions to a failing government policy.
The number of centralised registrations, linkings and controls
has therefor increased tremendously. Starting-point is the
Community Basic Administration (GBA). In the GBA a 'digital
twin' is kept of everyone who resides in the Netherlands for
more than three months. All important personal information is
kept in this system. Although there has always been resistance
against the introduction of a central personal number in the
Netherlands, the social-fiscal number is registrated in GBA,
too. This so-fi-number appears increasingly in computer regis-
trations (at health insurance funds for example) and identity-
cards. The digital citizen in GBA has to become a sort of
standardised citizen. Not only (semi)government institutions
are able to exchange information with GBA. Third parties' like
the Insurance-bank, health insurance funds etc, can appeal for
information from GBA. Within this network of registrations and
linkings, GBA is the pounding heart. Through this the digital
citizen becomes an easy to control object, with as only prob-
lem the verification in the physical world. For this the
solution is proposed that when making changes in GBA, one will
have to identify him/herself. It is obvious that this obliga-
tion to identify will later also be entered for use of other
services. The possibilities of control through GBA (with
social-fiscal number really linkable to everything), are
boundless. The linking to the Foreigners Administration System
(VAS) is one of the first and shows how laws and rules go
together with the development of technology.
One of the biggest collector of information is the police. Of
everyone who has had dealings with the police, information is
stored. For one part it concerns 'hard' legal information
about persons, for instance in the Central Police Register
(CPR). People who are wanted are in a comparable register,
which is also directly accessible for the officer in the
street. But more and more the police also register 'soft'
information. For example, every police region has its own
Antecedents-register, in which data are entered about everyone
who has ever got a process-verbal. The mayor or an intelli-
gence service can consult this register for a screening or
when giving a proof of good conduct.
Videoregistration and control has been the third eye in the
security business for years. Industrial complexes, government
offices, entrance controls and shoppingcentres, there is
nowhere where you can hide from the surveilling eye of the
camera. The last few years the videocamera is seen more and
more often in the public roads with the possibility to regis-
trate everything and everyone that passes. This is already
happening on large scale in Britain. More than 300,000 cam-
eras, pointed at the public roads, form a network of closed
videocircuits. In the Netherlands this sort of closed video-
systems are in advance. Many shoppingcentres already have them
and a number of cities spy on the public roads, soon all the
railway stations will be provided with them.
The government of Massachusetts (USA) has developed a new plan
to counter criminality and fraud. In the end of 1995 they
began with a computer database which contains digitalized
photos of all the 4,2 million car owners. Within one second
the database can cough up the photos with which answering
questions like: 'who is that bankrobber' or 'who joined this
demonstration', becomes very simple. The system can see
through disguises because it primarily registers essential
characteristics, like facial structure and the size of the
pupils. All photos can be scanned and compared with the data-
base. The system is a modernised version of the in the Nether-
lands tested and used licence registration system.
For registration and control the smart card is used increas-
ingly. This is a kind of bankcard with a chip, on which a
large amount of information can be stored. It can be used as
an entrypass, as S.O.S.-pass in emergencies, but also as
extensive medical card or identification card. In the Nether-
lands the smart card is now used for registration and control
of refugees in the reception centres. With a so-called elec-
tronic W-document their movements are registered and checked.
In Germany there are far-advanced plans to store medical files
on smart cards. In the U.K. proposals have been made to intro-
duce a complete identification duty, whereby there is also an
electronic photo registered on the smart card.
Around the world governments and companies use Biometry:
collecting, processing and registering detailed personal
characteristics. The most well-known forms are the registra-
tion of fingerprints, voice recognition and digitalized stor-
age of passport photographs. With these technologies different
countries work on a variety of methods of exclusion. In Spain
a fingerprintsystem for unemployed is started, Russia
announced a fingerprintsystem for banking transactions, in
Jamaica everyone will soon have to let a fingerprint of the
thumb be scanned into a computer, before they can participate
in the elections. Two major insurance companies in the USA,
Blue Shield and Blue Cross, have developed plans to take
fingerprints of everyone who is administered in hospital.
The Chipknip is a digital wallet, you put your chipknip in a
machine, charge it and then you can pay with it. With this
centralised system is registered who makes a withdrawal or
pays. The whole system of money can be mapped this way. In
Arnhem a large scale test is going on, it is expected that the
system will be in operation nation-wide next year.
Increasingly it is decided who can register what, on a euro-
pean level. What can be registered, is hardly limited. In the
meanwhile a more joint policy is made on the field of internal
security. The developments with the Schengen-agreement and the
competence of Europol, makes one think.
The goal of cooperation is no longer only the prosecution of
crime, but also extensive pro-active control focused on the
prevention of crime. The intention is to combat criminal
activities before they can even take place. The start of
police activities is so set to a stage preceding possible
criminal behaviour. No longer individuals are concerned, on
the basis of equal rights, but whole groups of which the
behaviour is viewed as marginal, deviant or potentially dan-
gerous. Not on the basis of criteria set by law, but by dep-
artments in charge of security and public order.
According to article 46 of the Executive Agreement of Schen-
gen, the police of a member-state can, unasked for, exchange
information with other partners of the agreement. This con-
cerns information: "in the importance of preventing future
crimes against, or threats of, public order and security."
According to this line of thinking, the Schengen Information
System (SIS) contains not only data of people who are sus-
pected of a crime. On the basis of article 99.3 information
can be stored and processed also for 'tactical observation' or
'targeted control'. This can take place "on request of author-
ities in charge of the security of the state, when concrete
supportive evidence induces the assumption that the informa-
tion (..) is essential to prevent a serious threat by the
person in question, or other serious threats to the internal
or external security of the state."
* criminals and possible future criminals;
The treaty however does not define what kind of personal
information can be stored. Essentially this will have to be
judged by the management. The first proposal to define this,
concerned an extensive form of registration with privacy-
sensitive data like race, political conviction, religion,
sexual behaviour and health.
As a consequence of the pro-active control-thinking the divi-
sion between competence of police and security services
becomes more unclear. The, in the Europol convention proposed,
cooperation does not only concern the policeforces of the
member-states, but all 'authorised services', meaning all
national services active, in one way or another, in the pre-
vention or prosecution of criminality. Taking into account
that some member-states have legislation whereby intelligence
services are responsible for combatting certain forms of
criminality, the Europol convention silently and uncondi-
tionally procures a place for the security services. The same
thing can be said about the Executive Agreement of Schengen,
which refers in article 99 to 'authorities in charge with the
security of the state.'
The definitions of 'criminal behaviour' and 'threatening
situations', which should legitimate actions of the police,
appear to become even more vague. Vague definitions open the
door for extensive and arbitrary interpretation.
Generally one can perceive a tendency to see so-called 'org-
anised crime' as something inherent to marginal situations and
economic activities- meaning a form of 'street crime' caused
by carthieves, 'peoplesmugglers, drugdealers and illegal
immigrants. In this way of reasoning, it is left out of con-
sideration that large scale organised crime is not confined to
the margins of society, on the contrary it is an integrated
function of a world-economy which is, increasingly, based on
free movement of goods, services and capital. The real problem
is that it becomes more difficult to differentiate between
legal and illegal business. To cope with the stricter competi-
tion even big international companies are tempted to break the
law, when advantages of competition and cost/assets calcula-
tions seem to demand this.
Dataprotection is rendered a 'utopia from the past'. Both
treaties anticipate (or do not exclude) the possibility of
information exchange for other purposes than what it was
stored for. The fact that exchange of information with third
parties needs clearance by the party who entered it, probably
will not mean that an extensive exchange will be limited to
the basis of 'give and take'.
Around Christmas '95 nelson visits a coffeeshop in Leiden.
People from foreign descent regularly go there. The police
raid the shop in search of a person, who is not there. They
check Nelson for identity-papers, which he can not produce. He
is taken, held for 24 hours in a policecell and dumped on the
street. In his experience this personal control is bizarre.
The owner of the coffeeshop states that the police don't
usually raid the place, but that they do arrest people just
outside.
Gordon wants to go back to Kazachstan. They have already tried
to expulse him to Moscow, but Moscow sent him to Kazachstan.
There he was not accepted, sent back to Moscow and then sent
back to the Netherlands. He has been in different prisons for
illegal foreigners in Germany and in the Willem II in Tilburg.
End of december '95, he tries to travel out of Germany and is
taken out of the train by the Bundes Grenzschutz. Gordon
doesn't have any travel or identitydocuments. He has to pay
400 US dollars as a kind of bail for a possible trial and is
summoned to leave Germany within two days, or he will be
arrested again. Except for Gordon a few other people are also
taken out of the train and given a fine. An attempt in january
'96 to get a traveldocument (laissez-passer) finally succeeds
at the embassy in Bruxelles. Gordon travels directly to Kazac-
hstan.
Musa is in a car with two others, on the road to Alkmaar, when
they pass a policecar. The passengers of the car, including
Musa, are black and the driver is white. The policecar follows
them a while and then stops them. They have checked the licen-
ce and have found out that the car is not insured. The two
black people are asked for identity-papers, the driver gets a
fine. The two are taken, registered and are in a policecell
for ten days, then they are transferred to the illegals-prison
Willem II in Tilburg. Musa is held in foreigners-detention for
five months and is, in the end, dumped on the street. The
other is held for four months and also dumped.
Melvin distributes the newspaper every morning. One time he is
held without reason and asked for identity-papers, which he
can not produce. Again he is taken, to the same policestation,
where the same police officer checks him. It is soon clear,
that Melvin is the one held for riding a bike in the wrong
direction of the street and is registered in the computer as a
foreigner. Melvin states that he was then dumped on the street
and that he thinks the same should happen now. This time
however, he is locked up in a policecell for twelve days. The
police ask him all kinds of questions about how he, in gods
name, can survive as an illegal, where he lives and how long
he is already living here. The result of a conversation
between Melvin and the police is that they come to his house
to see how he lives. When they have seen that, they release
him, saying that he should stay clear from the police.
A‹cha, wife of Hicham, both illegally residing in the Nether-
lands, is pregnant. She has to go to a hospital, because of
complications. She has the baby in the Slotervaart-hospital,
the baby is born early and has to go in the incubator. This
costs hundreds of guilders a day. The costs of the delivery
and the stay in the hospital also have to be paid. The couple
doesn't have health insurance, the needed medical assistance
is to expensive. The parents decide to take the child, to find
a cheaper solution, perhaps another hospital. The hospital
wants the parents to first sign a declaration that they take
the responsibility of the risk for the child. They sign and go
away, there is no other choice. Their midwife blazes with
indignation when she hears that the hospital has released the
child at this stage. She thinks the hospital is negligible of
their duty. She demands new hospitalisation of the baby, which
happens. In this situation of uninsured illegals, the parents,
it seems that having a residence-permit is a condition to get
health insurance. No residence-permit, no medical assistance.
Still a baby in an incubator is an acute medical necessity.
Negligence of this care creates a life-threatening situation.
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