The Dutch Police Act provides the police with the legal power to gather information about a person on the internet as long as this does not cause more than ‘a limited violation of privacy’. If the police are gathering more information about a person they need a special legal power laid down in the Dutch Code of Criminal Procedure. The dividing line between ‘a limited violation of privacy’ and ‘more than a limited violation of privacy’ is not always clear. The legislator is preparing a new piece of legislation to provide the police with more clarity. This article discusses the suggested law article with respect to the gathering of information from open sources. Furthermore, this article suggests to not only regulate the amount of information the police are gathering but also the kind of tools that the police use (simple search machine versus an advanced web crawler).

In the context of criminal investigations police and prosecution can appeal to the public for information to further their case. This decision cannot be taken lightly and requires a balancing exercise between the rights of the suspect (and other people involved), specifically the right to privacy, the interest of criminal investigations, such as the identification of the suspect or witnesses, and public pressure to fight crime.
In the current digital society, the prosecutor can choose between a wide range of (new) media and modes of communication to ask for information. Next to wanted notices on paper posters and broadcasts on television, appeals for information are published on websites, social media platforms, apps and digital screens. Citizens can modify and share these appeals and they can comment on them. This necessitates careful consideration by the prosecutor on whether and how to appeal for information. After all, these appeals could lead to DIY-policing or online vigilantism (digilantism), leading to infringements on the right to privacy and even possibly to misidentification of suspects.
This article contributes to the continuing debate. We describe the legal framework the prosecution has to take into account in such cases. The importance of a considered decision is illustrated by three cases in which judicial authorities appealed to the public for help in the criminal investigations, resulting in massive (media) attention and consequently affecting the eventual criminal case against the defendants. In two of these cases the prosecutorial decision to involve the public’s help resulted in a violation of the defendants’ rights to privacy and consequently had to be remedied by the court. Both cases led to social, legal and political debate about the balance between privacy and crime control.

Social engineering is the usage of social manipulation and psychological tricks to make the targets assist offenders in their attack. This paper aimed to discuss the success of social engineering attacks and interventions in an organisational setting. Three kinds of social engineering experiments were discussed, each using a different modality (i.e. face-to-face (f2f), email and telephone). In each experiment, the targets (i.e. participants) were persuaded to perform actions that contribute to their victimisation.
A portion of the participants in both the f2f and telephone experiment received an intervention to reduce victimisation. The conclusion is that awareness raising about dangers, characteristics and countermeasures related to social engineering proved to have a significant positive effect on protecting the target. The results of these experiments allow practitioners to focus awareness campaigns to maximise their effectiveness.

With the digitization of society, perpetrators gained new tools to commit crimes. Online fraud, also referred to as e-fraud, is one of the most common types of cybercrime. The present study focusses on two types of e-fraud: phishing and online consumer fraud. Although e-fraud always contains a digital component, the human is the weakest link in such crimes. Perpetrators deceive their victims to acquire sensitive data or to conclude a fraudulent sale, which makes victims unwillingly participate in the offence. However, not every person adheres to such fraudulent schemes. This raises the question what makes some people comply with these schemes and thus become a victim of cybercrime, while others do not. In this study, the differences between personality traits of e-fraud victims and the Dutch population were investigated. Personality traits influence the way people process information and react to situations, which also applies when people are confronted with e-fraud. Data were collected through an online survey, in which 224 e-fraud victims participated. The outcomes of the survey were compared with norm groups representative for the Dutch population. E-fraud victims, compared to the Dutch population, scored higher on extraversion, altruism and conscientiousness, and lower on neuroticism. Based on the findings, recommendations have been made for the development of targeted preventive measures against e-fraud.

This study focusses on determinants of willingness to report cybercrime to the police or to other organizations and motivations for (not) reporting victimization. In this study, a questionnaire containing vignettes is used. Vignettes are semi-experimental designs in which hypothetical situations are presented and certain factors can be manipulated between and within respondents. Factors that are measured within the vignettes are the type and seriousness of the offence, the relationship between offender and victim and which possibilities for reporting the offence are available.
It is shown that the type of offence is an important determinant for willingness to report the offence, which is highest for fraud, followed by hacking and malware. Likewise, willingness to report is higher for more serious offences than for less serious offences. These results are comparable to results on willingness to report traditional crimes.
With regard to psychological determinants, results are not in line with previous results on willingness to report traditional crimes. For the relationship between offender and victim, mixed results are found. If the offender is an acquaintance of the victim, willingness to report to the police increases, but willingness to report to another organization decreases, compared to the offender being unfamiliar to the victim. Another surprising result is that no correlation is found between attitudes towards the police and willingness to report offences. Also unexpectedly, it is found that respondents who have previously reported crime and were unsatisfied about this experience, were more willing to report offences than respondents who never reported crimes before.
Regarding motivations for willingness to report, it is found that, in general, motivations for reporting cybercrime are strongly comparable to motivations for reporting traditional crime, however, differences in motivations are found between the different types of cybercrime.

Drones en drone-gerelateerde cybertechnologieën nemen een vlucht in het veiligheidsdomein in de vorm van toepassingen door het leger, de politie, brandweer, private beveiligingsbedrijven, en ook deurwaarders, agrariërs en burgerinitiatieven. Drones werden in eerste instantie ontwikkeld voor militaire doeleinden. Hun aanpassingsvermogen als universele platforms voor beeldregistratie en goederenvervoer leidt tot hoge verwachtingen rond toepassing in het civiele domein. Dit artikel onderzoekt de ethische aspecten van “dual use” van drones en gerelateerde technologieën. Verschillende dimensies van dual use worden verkend: de technologisch ontwikkeling, maar ook de ontwikkeling van wet- en regelgeving in Amerika en Europa. Voor het Nederlandse veiligheidsdomein is relevant dat dit artikel bijdraagt aan het signaleren van de noodzaak om de ontwikkeling en toepassing van drones in breder perspectief te bezien. Drones en hun toepassingen maken deel uit van de internationale markt van militaire organisaties en van veiligheidsorganisaties in het publieke en private domein. Bovendien maken ze veelal deel uit van geïntegreerde systemen en van wereldwijde platforms voor consumentenelektronica. Dit artikel is een van de resultaten uit het door NWO gefinancierde project 'Responsible Design of Drones and Drone Services: Towards an Ethical and Juridical Tool For Drone Design and Risk Assessment' (Project no. 313-99-318). Het project was gericht op het ontwikkelen van een instrument voor ontwikkeling en gebruik van dronetoepassingen uitgaande van methoden als Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) en Value Sensitive Design (VSD).