Historic day: fingerprint storage halted!

Today, the redeeming word: the storage of fingerprints under the new Passport Act will be abolished! Both the development of a national database and the current storage at municipalities will be discontinued. The already stored fingerprints of 4½ million innocent citizens will now have to be destroyed. Moreover, the legal status of the national identity card will be changed so that fingerprints will no longer have to be included in that document. This will create an identity document without biometrics for domestic use and fulfil a long-held wish of objectors of principle. Privacy First had made all these demands last week in a letter to the House of Representatives and is pleased that these demands are now being met.

From the moment the new Passport Act came into force in the summer of 2009, Privacy First has opposed it by every means possible. Today is a historic day: this day proves that social resistance pays off. Partly under pressure from our civil lawsuit with 21 co-claimants the new Passport Act effectively collapsed today. We predicted it months ago: 'Left or right' (political or legal) we were going to win this process. Privacy First is determined to continue this development and make the Netherlands a society that Dutch citizens deserve: a society where trust and freedom are once again basic values and where everyone's right to privacy is respected. The victory over the new Passport Act is a crucial first step in this process.