The exposure of a new, unexpected surveillance scandal in Denmark has further heated the debate over privacy and personal data.
In recent weeks it's been revealed that the Danish weekly magazine, Se og Hør (See and Hear), bribed an insider IT-specialist who had access to highly confidential private records through the Danish central communication system – including credit card and debit card information along with other private data of the royal family, celebrities and politicians.
The central source, along with police informers and the use of other questionable sources, has helped the magazine monitor, track and expose the habits of target victims. The case has become part of the simmering debate about surveillance in Denmark as well as Denmark’s role in the NSA spying scandal.
Most ironically, several Danish politicians who have supported legislation that permits foreign agencies to snoop on the private lives of Danish citizens have now become victims of their own surveillance. And they have not taken it lightly.
So far, police have arrested former chief editors and sub-editors of the magazine while several other employees have been placed under investigation. Nets, the company in charge of public digital communication services concerning the credit and debit cards, have likewise been investigated for the safety breach.
Politicos Speak Out
According to the spokesperson for Denmark's Social Democrats Party, Trine Bramsen, it is “completely unheard of and unacceptable what has taken place.” Pia Kjærgsgaard, the former leader of the country's far right Danish People's Party, called it “gobsmackingly uncomfortable” to have her privacy violated.
Another right wing politician, Søren Pind, from the opposition party Venstre, has responded by proposing increased protections on the private life of politicians. Apparently, however, that protection does not include the average Danish citizen.
In an earlier statement, Pind said, “It is my general hope that Denmark has a very close relationship with the American intelligence agencies,” referring to the private information of Danish citizens that had been extracted by the Danish state and given to the NSA and other foreign spy agencies.
Now, in resemblance to George Orwell's 1984 – where the political elite are exempt from surveillance – Danish politicians in favor of state surveillance on ordinary Danes have expressed a wish to limit the surveillance but only to the doorstep of their own private lives.
Responding to the question of Denmark's role aiding NSA surveillance, as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt along with Denmark's Minister of Justice said only that they knew of no “unlawful” surveillance on Danes by Danish police intelligence or the NSA – leaving a question about what constitutes the “legal” surveillance that is taking place.
Edward Snowden Decries "Suspicionless Surveillance" in Denmark
Edward Snowden recently weighed in on Denmark's growing magazine surveillance scandal. He sent a letter to the Danish newspaper, Berlingske Tidende, where he wrote that the scandal has shown the surveillance situation is “subjecting the Danish elite to the same suspicionless surveillance ordinary citizens are facing every day from today's dangerously out-of-control spying services.”
Snowden added: “The good news is that parliament has the power to act, and worldwide public support for ending mass surveillance has never been higher... Now it's time to raise your voice, and free Denmark from suspicionless surveillance.”
The whole case initially blew open when a former employee of Se og Hør, Ken Rasmussen, published a book about the information gathering methods of the magazine. According to Rasmussen, one of the magazine's prime targets has been Prime Minister Schmidt.
The goal was to track the prime minister's movements to find out when she would be in her summer house so that the magazine could send paparazzi to take pictures of her topless and publish them on the front page. The prime minister has so far declined to comment on the case.
The magazine's well known former chief editor and political commentator, Henrik Quortrup, has denied he had knowledge about the surveillance. But recently he was arrested and his house searched; he has subsequently been fired from his job as political commentator for a Danish TV station.
The case in some ways parallels the ongoing British phone hacking scandal in which journalists from the Rupert Murdock-owned News International hacked phones, bribed police and used other shady ways of gaining access to private information for the purpose of breaking stories – including hacking the phone of a murdered girl in order to track her movements and listen to her voicemail.
Corporate Surveillance
The furor caused by the Danish magazine's illegal surveillance techniques revealed not only a laughing double standard – where politicians openly support surveillance policies until the surveillance comes back and personally bites them. It also stirred renewed debate about corporations and businesses having wide access to personal data by which to track people's movements and their habits.
In the case of the Se og Hør scandal, the magazine's informant worked within the company Nets Holding A/S and broke that central information system's trust. In Denmark, Nets has a monopoly over the so-called Dankort, the national debit and credit card system, as well as the so-called NemID, which is the online digital communication system registering all citizens, organizations, businesses and public institutions.
This leaves the company with almost unlimited access to personal information about almost all groups and citizens in the country. Now, the Danish population is wondering aloud whether its central economic and administrative system can be entrusted to protect people's most personal and private information.
Just before the scandal broke last month, the majority of Nets stock was being sold by American Advent International and Bain Capital. Previously owned by Danish banks, Nets had been warned not to sell to foreign investors explicitly for the fear that international players could have access to data from all Danish citizens. But despite the sensitive information, politicians and the leadership of Nets refused to act, claiming there was no reason to fear people's personal data was not being handled properly.
With the Se og Hør scandal now revealed, those comforting promises have been put to shame. In one of Europe's and the world's most functional and successful liberal democracies, citizens have suddenly confronted the failure – and in many ways the willing participation – of the State to enable private institutions to grossly mishandle citizens' private data.
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