Privacy First wins lawsuit against license plate parking

Court rules: no fine for refusal to enter license plate number 

Today, the Amsterdam court handed down a landmark ruling in the Privacy First chairman Bas Filippini's lawsuit against license plate parking. Filippini refused to enter his license plate number because license plate parking violates the right to privacy. The court agreed with him: parkers do not have to enter their license plate number as long as they can prove that they have paid for their parking space, for instance by means of a receipt from the parking meter. This calls into question local parking policies, not only in Amsterdam but in all Dutch municipalities where license plate parking has been (or threatens to be) introduced. Privacy First considers this a major victory in the fight for more privacy in public spaces.

Privacy First hereby calls on everyone to stop entering a license plate number when parking and to object and appeal against any fine. Privacy First will post model objection letters to this effect on this website next week.

Click HERE for the entire judgment and HERE for media coverage today. Should the Amsterdam municipality decide to appeal, Privacy First views those proceedings with confidence.

Privacy First is represented in this case by Mr Benito Boer of Alt Kam Boer Advocaten in The Hague. This law firm also represents Privacy First in the cassation phase of our civil law Passport Trial at the Supreme Court.

Update 5 February 2015: Today, Privacy First launched a national objection campaign against license plate parking. Click HERE If you want to file an appeal against an unjustified parking fine for license plate parking!

Update 13 February 2015: Today, the municipality of Amsterdam informed Privacy First that it will NOT appeal to the Amsterdam Court of Appeal in our case. However, the municipality does appeal in other similar lawsuits by individual citizens against license plate parking. In this way, the municipality is trying to circumvent the expertise, social influence and media reach of Privacy First (and our lawyers). Privacy First will gladly provide legal support to individual citizens in relevant appeal cases and hereby appeals to these citizens to contact Privacy First.