Legislation and passport

From 15 July 2009, the new passport law, which came into practice on 21 September 2009, applies in the Netherlands. Click  HERE for the legal text.

The submission of the proposed legislative amendment on 15 February 2008 was accompanied by an Explanatory Memorandum. Click  HERE For the secretary of state's explanation.

The Dutch passport law is a Dutch implementation of European regulations.

The European Union has ordered its member states to include fingerprints in travel documents. Click  HERE for this regulation.

The European Union issued a directive on handling personal data in 1995. It also regulates a number of privacy rights that vaguely resemble some Fair Information Principles, such as the right of access and correction. Click  HERE for this directive.

In 2000, the European Union released the Charter of Fundamental Rights (of citizens) of the European Union. Click  HERE for its text.

Note 1.
Although everyone focuses on the European Convention on Human Rights, the ECHR, in our opinion the Charter goes further and offers better protection. In the ECHR, there are all kinds of extra articles that allow individual states to get out from under all kinds of human rights provisions. That was not in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 10 December 1948.
The background is that the ECHR had to be signed by 47 states, including the Soviet Union, while the Charter was signed by the 27 member states of the European Union.
The Charter only came into 'hard' force on 1 December 2009. So there is no case law of it yet and the custom is to go to the Strasbourg Court for enforcement of the ECHR.

Note 2.
The Marper case constitutes case law for the passport process. Click  HERE for the text of the European Court of Human Rights ruling.