Opposition parties in Denmark are sounding the alarm, claiming that the government wants to conduct mass surveillance of all Danes. The criticism comes from both red and blue parties. This is reported by DR.

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) needs to be better able to analyse large amounts of digital data in order to intercept terrorist attacks, sabotage or espionage before they happen. With this argument, the government has proposed a bill that many experts and organisations have called a far-reaching step towards a mass surveillance society.

But the Conservatives, the Liberal Alliance and the Danish People’s Party will vote against the government’s bill.

“It’s a mass surveillance tool, so if it doesn’t also lead to a mass surveillance society, I don’t know what good it will do,” says Steffen Larsen, spokesman for the Liberal Alliance, who is also chairman of the Danish Parliament’s justice committee.

“It basically turns all Danes into suspects, because now everyone will be investigated, screened, for everything they do. And that’s the opposite of a normal rule of law,” he explains.

PET’s new tool will be able to collect and analyse three types of datasets:

1) Datasets that consist of information from publicly available sources. For example, public registers, social media comment fields, websites and media outlets.

2) Datasets consisting of information from Danish administrative authorities. For example, health authorities or social authorities. The authorities will be obliged to disclose information to PET that the intelligence service requests under the proposed rules.

3) Data sets that predominantly contain information about persons who are not resident in Denmark.

PET must delete large, continuous datasets no later than five years after the dataset was collected. However, the deadline for deletion can be extended for up to 20 years.

The Conservatives’ Mai Mercado describes it as a very far-reaching tool to put in the hands of the intelligence service. “We want to prevent terrorism, and we also want to ensure that we can prevent much more. But collecting all the Danes’ data is not commensurate with the means. That’s why we’re very, very concerned about this bill,” says Mercado.

Would she say that this will lead to a mass surveillance society?

“Yes, it will, because it gives PET access to all Danes’ information in all public registers. It’s extremely comprehensive and it’s extremely far-reaching. The Danish People’s Party will not be voting in favour of this bill either, says Mette Thiesen, spokesperson for legal issues. “I think it’s extremely far-reaching that PET should monitor ordinary Danes when they’re looking for terrorists,” she told DR.

The bill will have its first reading on 14 May and is scheduled to be adopted before the summer holidays, so that it can come into force in October. However, the opposition parties believe that they cannot properly process such a complex bill before the summer holidays.

DR reports that yesterday a number of experts and organisations sent an open letter to Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard (S), warning that the law will lead to a mass surveillance society in Denmark.

“Unleashing artificial intelligence on sensitive personal data raises serious data ethics issues and could have unpredictable consequences for individual citizens. “Therefore, the government must stop the rush and open up for a thorough debate on the consequences of surveillance,” says Laura Klitgaard, head of the trade union IDA, in the press release.

She emphasises that surveillance on the scale proposed by the government risks undermining the individual’s right to privacy and irreparably damaging trust between citizens and authorities.

Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard (S), on the other hand, flatly rejects the criticism from organisations, experts and opposition parties.

“There is nothing in this that is about surveillance. It’s more about an analysis tool. And to be honest: A lot of this data will be foreign data,” says the Minister of Justice.

He claims that the law will not change the rules for how PET can process information about individuals. It’s about seeing patterns.

“In a society where more and more of our activity takes place online, PET will be able to extract this information behind closed doors and combine it with other data to find exactly those needles in the haystack that can warn of an impending terrorist attack, espionage or sabotage,” says Peter Hummelgaard.