Archive for 2012/01/29   In answering questions by parliament
members Gesthuizen (Socialist Party) and El Fassed (Green)  -
the government says that it is aware that providers of mobile
services and operating systems are capable of collecting
information about WiFi routers (MAC addresses, signal strengths)
and that these companies are combining and correlating the
information with other sources of data such as GPS services;  -
the government does not answer the question if it is aware of
businesses collecting such data (without explicit permission) in
The Netherlands. It also does not answer the question whether
such companies are breaking any laws;  - the government feels
that a ban on these practices is not needed and that regulators
have sufficient power to take action ‘in individual cases’ and
if the circumstances require it;  - the government points to
decisions by European regulators requiring explicit
authorization from users before one can go and collect ‘location
information’. However, it says that t