Webwereld, 17 Oct 2013: 'EU court torpedoes Dutch fingerprinting law'

“The European "no" to the storage of fingerprints in databases may lead to the declaration of the illegality of Article 4b in the Dutch Passport Act, which precisely tries to legally secure a central database. There is a court case on this issue in The Hague at the end of this month.

Article 4b, which provides for the establishment of a central travel document administration, is still included in the new Dutch passport law, which was recently debated in the House of Representatives and is now up for a vote in the Senate. This is a "dormant article", which can be activated later but will not take effect immediately if Minister Plasterk's bill is passed. That article also states that the fingerprint database can be accessed by the public prosecutor when it comes to tracing people who commit crimes.

“The European "no" to the storage of fingerprints in databases may lead to the declaration of the illegality of Article 4b in the Dutch Passport Act, which precisely tries to legally secure a central database. There is a court case on this issue in The Hague at the end of this month.

Article 4b, which provides for the establishment of a central travel document administration, is still included in the new Dutch passport law, which was recently debated in the House of Representatives and is now up for a vote in the Senate. This is a "dormant article", which can be activated later but will not take effect immediately if Minister Plasterk's bill is passed. That article also states that the fingerprint database can be accessed by the public prosecutor when it comes to tracing people who commit crimes.

And that has now been rock-bottom undermined by the European Court of Justice, which says that the directive requiring European member states to include two fingerprints in passports does not provide a legal basis for the inclusion of those fingerprints in databases. In addition, fingerprints provided by citizens cannot be used for Justice Department investigations into crime, the EU Court says nail-bitingly.

Dutch court ruling at the end of October

This is ammunition for privacy organisation Privacy First, which expects a ruling in an appeal on 29 October. Privacy First and 19 citizens filed a lawsuit to have storage of fingerprints in a central database declared illegal. The court in The Hague ruled two and a half years ago that Privacy First and the citizens were inadmissible in the case, upon which Privacy First appealed. That will occur 29 October.

"I hope we will then at least be declared admissible. Times have now changed and the court could come to a different judgement than the court given the sensitivity of the issue in society," said Privacy First's Vincent Böhre. Should the civil rights organisation be declared admissible, the case could be dealt with substantively. "I hope that the court decides immediately that Article 4b is unlawful, but the substantive hearing could also take place later."

Lower house approves central storage

That the issue is still topical, Böhre attributes more or less to the Lower House. "During the debate on the last amendment to the Passport Act in September, that was mainly guided by making the ID card fingerprint-free. I welcome that, but they overlooked Article 4b that regulates central storage. "Should the court decide to declare Privacy First inadmissible, the organisation will go to the Supreme Court. "We will go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary."

Böhre further hopes that the EU Court of Justice ruling will prompt the Senate to still remove Article 4b from the new Passport Act. "It is currently a dormant article but can be activated by the minister at any time. I know parliament is not in favour of a central database at the moment, so it would not be an appropriate time for the minister to use that article at the moment. But that may be different in the future."

Labour Party: central database already gone

Interestingly, Lower House member Astrid Oosenbrug (PvdA) is in the firm belief that the central database has been removed from the new Passport Act. "I also really wonder why we ever said yes to that. But fortunately, you can also reverse such decisions.""

Source: http://webwereld.nl/beveiliging/79721-eu-hof-torpedeert-nederlandse-wet-vingerafdrukken.