Dr Ester Post participates in WODC research on control of digital data carriers

Ester Post , assistant professor of Criminal Law at our faculty, participated in a research project commissioned by the Research and Data Center (WODC). Together with Pro Facto and Hooghiemstra & Partners, Post conducted research into the monitoring of digital data carriers of persons convicted of online child sexual abuse.

Capacity issues and concerns about legal admissibility

About 300 times a year, the judge imposes a suspended sentence with the condition of checking the digital data carriers. The Parole Board is responsible for monitoring, with the police handling the technical investigation on behalf of the Parole Board with specific software until mid-2023.

Both the police and the Parole Board experienced problems with this method. The police faced capacity problems and did not see monitoring as its core mission. The Parole Board had concerns about the legal permissibility of the check, given Supreme Court rulings. The police stopped the checks in the summer of 2023, and a temporary provision is currently being worked on by the Parole Board.

Evaluation, research and exploration

The WODC study in which Post participated had three parts:

• An evaluation of the old control method,
• An investigation into the further development of the control method and
• An exploration with the goal whether the checking method can be extended to other online crimes.

Findings

The main recommendation regarding the further development of monitoring is: when a judge imposes monitoring as a special condition, it will have to be actually carried out by the Probation Service. For this, the Probation Service needs more capacity and resources to be able to carry out the monitoring independently. This includes hiring staff with appropriate ICT skills.

Also, the Prosecutor's Office, the Judicial Council and the Probation Service - apart from individual case histories - will have to consult more with each other on the formulations of the special condition and its enforceability. The focus of monitoring should be on gaining insight into risky behavior. The software should be able to detect this automatically.

Finally, in light of Article 10(1) of the Constitution, it is recommended that a specific legal basis be created in a law in the formal sense for the control of data carriers.

The research report can be read at the link below: