SNV contributes to 5th International Intelligence Oversight Forum (IIOF)

On 14th and 15th November, Charlotte Dietrich and Thorsten Wetzling presented their research findings at the 5th International Intelligence Oversight Forum (IIOF) hosted by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

Charlotte Dietrich used the panel "extensions of intelligence collection in areas which are not classical security threats" to present a new SNV report on Disproportionate use of commercially and publicly available data: Europe’s next frontier for intelligence reform? Having mapped different modes of intelligence agencies’ access to data, she shed light on activities of data brokers and their intensifying collaborations with the intelligence sector. Based on SNV's analysis of risks to the rights to privacy, informational self-determination, and freedom of expression as well as current policy and governance challenges, she presented a number of recommendations and best-practice-examples from various European jurisdictions that were derived from the European Intelligence Oversight Network's earlier work on the topic.

Thorsten Wetzling was invited to share his views on German foreign intelligence reforms and the U.S. President's Executive Order On Enhancing Safeguards For United States Signals Intelligence Activities during a panel called "Privacy should not depend on the passport in your pocket: oversight of surveillance of foreign intelligence and non-citizens“. Thorsten discussed this with Peter A. Winn, the Acting Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer of the United States Department of Justice and Alex Joel, Scholar-in-Residence and Adjunct Professor at Washington College of Law and former Chief of the Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy and Transparency at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The IIOF attracted members of intelligence oversight bodies, representatives of intelligence agencies and data protection authorities as well as a small number of researchers specialising in surveillance and related matters from various democracies across the world.