The tender on an online system of motorway vignette sales, cancelled by
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš after IT specialists organised a hackathon
where they designed a similar system free of charge, included a
sophisticated surveillance system, online news site Seznam Zprávy reported
on Monday. Seznam claims that the public data gathering system was agreed
to by the Ministry of Transport in cooperation with the Czech secret
services and police.
Former Transport Ministrer Vladimír Kremlík, who was sacked because of
the overpriced tender, told Seznam that the system was supposed to be
capable of photographing license plates and “logically, more than
that”. He also admitted that a part of the proposed system was kept under
secrecy.
The head of the Czech counterintelligence service refused to comment on the
story, but last week the organisation’s spokesman Ladislav Šticha said
that intelligence services’ access to data on vehicles and their owners
was expected from the beginning and is supported by legislation. However,
only in so far as accessing the license plates and vignettes registers.