The Dutch government has proposed a new bill to allow investigators to hack computers to strengthen the investigation and prosecution in cyber crime.
As per the new bill, investigators will be allowed to hack into criminal’s computer systems, including those who are based in foreign countries.
Investigators will also have the right to install spyware, read emails and destroy files.
The government said that existing legislation is out of date and offers insufficient options to for instance crack encrypted data, tackle illegal actions on internet of fight child pornography online.
The new bill also allows for the possibility to oblige suspects of the possession and trade in child pornography or of terrorist activities to cooperate in opening encrypted files in their computer.
The bill is aimed at preventing third parties having access to the stolen information after intrusion in a computer and place it on websites.
Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten said when criminals are paralysing vital parts of society using botnets, it must be possible to take better action against it.
According to the government, botnets are largescale networks of semi-autonomously working software robots on ‘zombie computers’ that can be operated from a distance to carry out illegal actions, such as sending spam, collecting secrets, credit card details and passwords.
The introduction of the new bill follows arrest of a 35-year-old Dutchman by Spanish authorities, who they claim is responsible for a huge distributed denial of service attack against Spamhaus in March 2013.
