Various regional dailies, 31 January 2015: 'Judge: entering license plate when parking is not mandatory'

"A motorist is not required to enter his registration number in a parking ticket machine. As long as he can prove that he bought a parking ticket, he should not be fined. This was decided by the court in a case brought by privacy advocate Privacy First.

The organisation believes that motorists' privacy is being unnecessarily violated by license plate parking, which is being introduced in more and more municipalities. The organisation's president parked his car in Amsterdam but gave a made-up license plate number at the ticket machine. He paid the parking fee but still received a fine of almost 60 euros.

License plate parking is being introduced in more and more municipalities because it facilitates checks. Inspectors drive past parked cars with scanners, automatically reading the license plates. Badges that have not been paid for are sent home with a receipt.

According to Privacy First, people should keep the option to park anonymously. The judge did not specifically address the question of whether parking by license plate infringes privacy, but found that it is up to the municipality to prove that someone has not paid. Fining someone who demonstrably did pay but entered a wrong license plate number is against the law. Should entering a license plate as a condition in the municipality's parking policy, that condition is illegal, the court held.

Privacy First says it is happy with the ruling, but regrets that the judge did not address the question of whether privacy is affected."

Source: BN/DeStem, Brabants Dagblad, De Stentor, Deventer Dagblad, Dagblad Flevoland, Dagblad de Limburger, Gelders Dagblad, Limburgs Dagblad, Nieuw Kamper Dagblad, Sallands Dagblad, Zutphen Dagblad, Zwolse Courant, Twentsche Courant Tubantia, Eindhovens Dagblad, Leidsch Dagblad, Gooi- en Eemlander, Haarlems Dagblad, IJmuider Courant, Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant, Noordhollands Dagblad, 31 January 2015.