Liberals say no to digital border control

Parliamentiary Leader of the Liberals, Terje Breivik. Photo: Venstre

Liberals say no to proposed digital border control

The National Convention of the Norwegian Liberal Party says no to the Government’s proposal for so-called digital border control. Parliamentary Leader, Terje Breivik, hopes that it will be possible to improve it.


“I am pleased that a unanimous National Convention says no to digital mass surveillance of Norwegian residents. Our privacy has been weakened in recent decades. Now the Liberals must work to retake that,” Leader of the Youth Party (Young Left), Sondre Hansmark, comments.

He has previously stated that he believes that the Liberals should dissent in Government, thereby not support the proposal.

Will fight against Digital Border Control

Liberal parliamentary leader, Terje Breivik, believes, however, that the decision does not necessarily entail that the party will dissent.

“We must argue and fight for the objections from the Liberals first,” Breivik tells NTB.

The Government’s proposal for digital border control is currently issued for consultation. Not before a proposal has been drafted to the Norwegian Parliament, the Liberal Party will consider whether they will take the opportunity to dissent. It has previously announced, in the Government platform, that it may do so.

Saves international communication on the internet

In the resolution by the National Convention, it is highlighted that the proposal provides the intelligence service with the opportunity to store all electronic communication that crosses Norwegian borders.

“As the servers that we communicate through often are located abroad, the proposal for digital border control will entail that the authorities will be able to collect most of what you do on the Internet,” it further states.

The party also decided that those who wish to store IP addresses must have a license from the Data Inspectorate. Additionally, the party will remove the court’s opportunity to block websites containing illegal, copyrighted, material.

The latter means that the courts will not be able to block online services such as PirateBay, who share files, movies and music illegally, according to NRK.

“We are not in favour of people not paying for music and movies, but there are better ways to solve that problem than to block websites, something which I believe is quite authoritarian,” Hansmark concludes to the national broadcaster.


© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
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