CCTV

Summary proceedings against massive privacy violation by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera surveillance Challenging large-scale privacy violations in court has long been Privacy First’s established practice. In recent years, Privacy First has successfully done so against the central storage in the Netherlands of everyone’s fingerprints under the Dutch Passport Act, against the storage of everyone’s communications data under the Dutch Telecommunications Data Retention Act and – in coalition with other parties – against large-scale risk profiling of innocent citizens through the Dutch System Risk Indication (SyRI). A current and urgent issue that equally merits going to court over, concerns the Dutch legislation on Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) which applies since 2019 under Art. 126jj of the Dutch Code…

Privacy First has had a turbulent year. At the start of 2018, we organized the Dutch Privacy Awards and they were a great success. Soon this event will take place again. The greatest success of the year, however, was the referendum against the new Dutch Intelligence and Security Services Act (better known as the Tapping Law), which was won by the initiators and their many supporters. Subsequently however, the Dutch government decided to ruthlessly abolish the referendum and Privacy First and others unfortunately were not in a position to prevent the Tapping Law from entering into force almost unaltered. Unless the Dutch government and the House of Representatives decide to thoroughly overhaul the Act, a large scale new lawsuit to…

On November 2nd 2016, the Dutch House of Representatives will address a controversial legislative proposal that will introduce four week storage of the travel movements of all motorists in the Netherlands. In case both chambers of Dutch Parliament adopt this proposal, Privacy First will try to overturn this in court. Large scale breach of privacy It is Privacy First’s constant policy to challenge large scale privacy violations in court and have them declared unlawful. Privacy First successfully did so with the central storage of everyone’s fingerprints under the Dutch Passport Act and the storage of everyone’s communications data under the Dutch Telecommunications Retention Act. A current and similar legislative proposal that lends itself for another major lawsuit is legislative proposal 33542 (in…

The Dutch Ministry of Justice wants to track all motorists. The Privacy First Foundation is preparing for legal action. Under a new, far-reaching legislative proposal, the Dutch Minister of Security and Justice Ivo Opstelten aims to enhance criminal investigation by introducing a four week storage period of the number plates of all cars through camera surveillance and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR). Current rules dictate that these data have to be deleted within 24 hours. In 2010, the previous Dutch Minister of Justice (Hirsch Ballin) planned to make a similar proposal with a storage period of 10 days. However, the Dutch House of Representatives then declared this topic to be controversial. In his current proposal, Opstelten takes things a few…

On Thursday morning 23 August 2012, the Dutch Royal Military and Border Police (Koninklijke Nederlandse Marechaussee, KMAR) presented to the international press the by now notorious Dutch camera system called @migo-Boras. That same afternoon the Privacy First Foundation was visited in Amsterdam by a camera crew of international news agency Associated Press (AP). For copyright reasons unfortunately we cannot publish the video material from AP. Among other things, Vincent Böhre (Privacy First) declared the following to AP:‘‘Our main concerns are about privacy, because this system is based on profiling and total surveillance of everybody driving on the highway. Our second objection is of course the Schengen Agreement: this system really comes down to border control, even though they don’t want to…