Webwereld, 17 Feb 2011: 'Higher appeal against fingerprint database'

"Privacy First continues its legal battle against the Passport Act. The foundation is appealing the judge's ruling. That declared Privacy First inadmissible.

The court found early this month that Privacy First had wrongly filed a lawsuit against the Dutch state because it has no direct interest in the case. The foundation had taken the state to court on the grounds that the new Passport Act would violate human rights and in particular the right to privacy.

Part of the Passport Act is the obligation to provide fingerprints when applying for a new passport. Those fingerprints will be stored in both a decentralised database at the municipality and a future central database managed by the state. Against that storage, Privacy First is fighting together with 21 citizens. Those 21 co-plaintiffs were also declared inadmissible by the court, as they must first go through the administrative court.

Privacy First, after analysing SOLV's lawyers, decided to appeal because, as an idealistic foundation, the club precisely has every interest in this case. Besides, citizens hardly have access to the administrative law process because the procedures in it are very long and cumbersome. The appeal will be handled by the Court of Appeal in The Hague. It is still unclear when the case will be heard. (...)"

Read HERE the entire article in Webwereld.