Winners Dutch Privacy Awards 2025 announced!

The Dutch Privacy Awards offer a podium to organisations and initiatives that see privacy protection as an opportunity to distinguish themselves positively and make privacy-friendly business and innovation the norm. These Awards are organised annually by Privacy First on European Privacy Day.

WINNER: PrivacyDetect by Watchful 

PrivacyDetect from Watchful is a scanner for redundant personal data that may be hidden in company records in all kinds of CVs, copies of passports, e-mails and so on. Redundancies include, for example, double storage of personal data or personal data after the retention period has expired. Employees are informed of the scan results with the responsibility of individual employees being the starting point. With PrivacyDetect, Watchful targets small and medium-sized enterprises and therefore keeps the product affordable compared to alternatives and pays attention to encouraging behavioural change.

The jury of the Dutch Privacy Awards believes that Watchful can make a substantial and practical contribution to the privacy compliance of business administrations and has therefore nominated Watchful for the Dutch Privacy Awards 2025.

WINNER: Municipality of Rotterdam in collaboration with Roseman Labs 

The City of Rotterdam is committed to reducing developmental delays among two- and three-year-old toddlers. Research shows that these arrears are hardly caught up in primary education. More than 1,200 toddlers do not participate in pre-school education. It is up to the municipality and its partners (including the Centre for Youth and Family) to gain insight into the problem and adjust quickly.

With the encryption technology of Roseman Labs allows datasets from more than 100 nurseries to be securely linked and analysed without revealing the raw data.

The collaboration between the Municipality of Rotterdam, Roseman Labs, the Centre for Youth and Family and the day-care centres demonstrates that innovative privacy technologies can be used effectively to address societal challenges, while maintaining privacy protection.

The jury of the Dutch Privacy Awards has therefore nominated the Municipality of Rotterdam and Roseman Labs for the Dutch Privacy Awards 2025.

ADVERTISEMENT PRIZE: RijksAcademie voor Digitalisering en Informatisering Overheid

With 'Routes to Privacy-Aware Leadership', the RijksAcademie voor Digitalisering en Informatisering Overheid (RADIO) focuses on the target group of managers. Without having to dive into theory, managers learn about privacy at work and can take informed actions. This is achieved with practical action lists for six situations.

The overview provided to the manager and the background information for managers is innovative and that appeals to the jury, even though this initiative is still in the development phase.

The jury of the Dutch Privacy Awards therefore awarded the RijksAcademie voor Digitalisering the Encouragement Award, hoping to give this initiative a boost to give.

Nominees

From the various entries, the independent expert jury had the following nominees selected:

• Philosophy in action
• Municipality of Utrecht
• Municipality of Rotterdam in collaboration with Roseman Labs 
• Project GERDA
• PrivacyDetect by Watchful 
• Autoscriber.  

During the National Privacy Conference, all nominees presented themselves to the jury and the audience through video-pitches. The Dutch Privacy Awards were then presented by the chairman of the jury. Click HERE for the entire jury report (pdf) with participation criteria and explanation of all nominees and winners.

National Privacy Conference

The National Privacy Conference is an initiative of ECP and Privacy First. This conference annually brings together Dutch business, government and science to jointly build a privacy-friendly society.

Speakers at the National Privacy Conference 2025 were successively:

• Marjolijn Bonthuis (programme director Digital Security & Trust, ECP)
• Aleid Wolfsen (chairman Personal Data Authority)
• Bram Hoovers (Considerati)
• Jaap-Henk Hoepman (Radboud University Nijmegen)
• Jaap Kerr and Jelle ten Hoor (Ministry of Economic Affairs)
• Vincent Böhre (director Privacy First)
• Jaap van der Wel (jury chairman Dutch Privacy Awards).

Chairman of the day was presenter Tom Jessen. Location of the conference was Nieuwspoort in The Hague. A conference report will follow shortly.

Jury Dutch Privacy Awards

The Awards jury consists of independent privacy experts from various sectors, in their personal capacity:

• Jaap van der Wel (jury chairman)
  IT expert and privacy lawyer 
• Mabel de Vries
  Data protection officer and senior information security, risk and privacy advisor
• Magdalena Magala
  Specialist coordinator AVG, Tax Office
• Rion Rijker
  Privacy and information security expert and IT lawyer, Rijker Advies & Educatie 
• Walter van Wijk
  Community manager privacy, Centre for Information Security and Privacy Protection (CIP)
• Sanne van de Velde
  Head of department General Administrative-Legal Affairs, Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management 
• Koen Versmissen
  Owner Expertise Centre for Data Ethics
• Marie-José Bonthuis
  Data protection officer, IT & Privacy Lawyer, Privacy1 
• Marlon Domingus
  Data protection officer, Erasmus University Rotterdam
• Friederike van der Jagt
  Owner and attorney Hunter Legal.

To ensure that the election of the Awards is conducted objectively, the jury is not allowed to judge an entry from its own organisation or an organisation in which a jury member has an interest.

Privacy First Foundation organises the Dutch Privacy Awards in association with ECP | Platform for the Information Society, with support from Molenaar & Plasman Solutions and The DPO Centre. Media partner is PONT Data & Privacy. Preregistrations for the Dutch Privacy Awards 2026 are already welcome!

Would you like to become a sponsor of the Dutch Privacy Awards? Then please contact Privacy First!