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Wob proceedings on the Passport Act: what Privacy First has since uncovered
Since September 2009, every Dutch citizen is required to have fingerprints taken when applying for a new passport or identity card. This duty stems from the new Passport Act, which came into force at that time. The development of this law began back in the late 1990s and has been surrounded by mystery to this day. This is despite some WRR studies (by Vincent Böhre and Max Cutter) that brought some light into the darkness at the end of 2010. Following all the fuss around fingerprint storage, a parliamentary hearing on the new Passport Act also took place in April 2011. However, no official record of this hearing exists. An 'unofficial', partial report of it by Privacy First can be found HERE. An excellent article in Vrij Nederland. Yet the shadiness then persisted... What is still under the carpet in the Dutch government? To clear this up Privacy First filed a Wob request earlier this year to the department primarily responsible: the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK). This request related to all government documentation on the introduction of 'biometric features' (including fingerprints) in Dutch travel documents. All in all, then, quite a big job for the 'carpet service' of the BZK
It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it
The file requested by Privacy First is huge and goes back at least to 1997. Both the departmental BZK archives and the external BZK archive in Winschoten were (and are) combed through. The same applies to the personal archives of civil servants. To comply with our Wob request, the Interior Ministry even had to hire extra staff, Privacy First heard via via. Consequently, Privacy First received the first of a (long?) series of partial decisions only after two months, in June 2011. Could this have been done faster if the government had put its archives in better order, those archives had already been digitised and their contents had not been wrongly labelled as confidential or 'state secret'? Or have things actually been delayed rather than accelerated by a parallel research commissioned by Minister Donner since this summer? This research is being conducted by Leiden professor (also former top official) Roel Bekker, so reported Automatisering Gids recently.
Anyway, through partial decrees, the Interior Ministry has been throwing periodic "Wob kludges" at Privacy First for several months. So far, this contains no shocking new material. Given the size of the file, it is mostly very little. Some of its content was already known, some of it particularly fits the (future?) street of the Interior Ministry. At this stage, however, the latter aspect makes it precisely interesting... From today onwards, we will therefore publish all documents received in full on our website. The same applies to a number of documents that were recently published extremely sloppily on the website of the Interior Ministry and that have so far escaped the attention of the media. The entire laundry list of documents can be found below. This list will be continuously added to and commented on by us.
For convenience, Privacy First has already marked the most interesting documents with an asterisk *. Occasionally even a double asterisk ** at the now rumoured TNO report by Ruud van Renesse. Further comments on all pieces will follow as said. So keep a close eye on our website. We wish you much 'reading pleasure'!
DOCUMENTS:
Acknowledgement of receipt from the Interior Ministry 4 May 2011
Interim report Interior Ministry 17 May 2011
Sub-decision 1 Interior Ministry 22 June 2011
Annex 1: List of parliamentary papers on biometrics in passports
*Annex 2: TNO memo on passport photographs (Sept 1998)
*Annex 3: biometrics evaluation study Ernst & Young (March 2001)
*Annex 3a: missing pages Ernst & Young study
Annex 4: letter Minister Van Boxtel on biometrics in travel documents (May 2001)
Annex 5: invitations biometrics conference BZK (May 2002)
Annex 6: additional invitations biometrics conference (May 2002)
*Annex 7: BZK biometrics conference summary (Sept 2002)
Annex 8: letter BZK (BPR) to Finland (Sept 2002)
*Annex 9: exploratory research biometrics Bureau Veldkamp (Jan 2003)
Partial decision 2 BZK 14 Sept 2011
*Annex 1: report biometrics conference BZK (Aug. 2002)
Annex 2: official note to minister Van Boxtel regarding interview Volkskrant (April 2001)
Annex 3: overview of biometrics and electronic identification pilots (April 2001)
**Annex 4: TNO report 'Quick-scan biometrics - all people are unequal' (Oct 1999)
Annex 6: press release Registration Chamber report 'At face value' (Oct. 1999)
*Annex 7: Registration Chamber report 'At face value' (Sept 1999)
Annex 8a: Erasmus University graduation thesis biometrics & chip card (Aug 1996) (part 1)
Annex 8b: Thesis Erasmus University biometrics & chip card (Aug 1996) (part 2)
*Annex 9: Senter Agency report 'Government, citizen and biometrics' (Nov 1998)
BZK decision 18 June 2010 following Wob request Brenno de Winter
*Annex 2: letter Minister Pechtold and BZK research report '2b or not 2b' (Sept 2005)
Annex 4: Functional Design of the Online Consultable Travel Document Administration (ORRA, Dec 2006) (part 2)
Annex 7: Letters Agency BPR on sample survey travel documents (Feb. - June 2008).
Update 30 March 2012: The documents below are relatively interesting, as they show that in mid-2004 there were important questions in the European Parliament (EP) regarding 1) the proportionality and 2) the cost of the introduction of biometrics as a measure against travel document fraud. The documents show that the Dutch government (c.q. BZK) did not have the relevant figures ready and that it took a lot of time and effort to answer the EP questions (only partially). Moreover, the answers show that the figures on fraud were very low and the cost of introducing biometrics very high. Figures on look-alike fraud with travel documents were missing at the time, by the way, at least at the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. The responses mainly mentioned false/falsified documents. This while the reason for introducing biometrics in travel documents was to combat look-alike fraud was; this is a specific, small-scale category within the broader phenomenon of identity fraud. For government statistics on look-alike fraud with Dutch travel documents our recent Wob results from ECID (KMar).
Sub-decision 3 Interior Ministry 8 February 2012
*Annex 3: BPR official note dated 13 October 2004 in response to EP rapporteur Sørensen's questions
Annex 5: BPR official note dated 15 July 2004 to minister De Graaf on '2b or not 2b' field trial
Annex 6: Course invitations from project manager biometrics BPR to Dutch municipalities dated 15 July 2004
Update 15 September 2012: Privacy First recently received some more Wob snippets from the Interior Ministry. The material below concerns, among other things, the awarding of an (additional) technical study on biometrics by the Interior Ministry (BPR) to VKA & TNO in the summer of 2002. This was done at the time to the exclusion of TNO expert Ruud van Renesse, who had previously been deemed "too critical" by BPR. You can read more about this affair in our report of the parliamentary hearing on the new Passport Act and in a Interview with Mr Van Renesse in Vrij Nederland. See further the report Happy Landings.
Sub-decision 4 Interior Ministry 28 August 2012
Annex 5: letter from the Interior Ministry dated 25 October 2000 in response to the above fax (see annex 4)
Annex 7: official memo BZK (BPR) dated 2 May 2002 on award of contract for laboratory facial recognition test
Annex 13: official memo BZK (BPR) dated 18 July 2002 on award of contract additional technical exploration biometrics to combat look-alike fraud
Update 7 December 2012: recently, Privacy First again received some Wob crumbs from the Interior Ministry, including a plan of action by Verdonck, Klooster & Associates (VKA, commissioned by BPR) for follow-up research on the use of biometrics from 2002. Particularly striking in this document is the following passage on p. 39: "Limited information is available on the nature and extent of look-alike fraud with Dutch travel documents. (...) In the absence of a somewhat realistic picture of the extent to which look-alike fraud with Dutch travel documents occurs, it will be impossible to make quantitative statements about the societal benefit that can be realised with the application of biometrics. This need not be a problem if it is sufficient to work with the assumption that biometrics will reduce look-alike fraud." (!) The relevant document can be found below as Annex 3:
Sub-decision 5 Interior Ministry 13 November 2012
*Annex 3: VKA plan of action dated 26 February 2002 on follow-up study on application of biometrics
Annex 5: internal BZK official memo (BPR) dated 25 September 2001 to minister Van Boxtel on the notification in the JHA Council of Dutch intentions regarding biometrics in travel documents
Update 5 April 2013: this week, Privacy First received some documents from the Interior Ministry relating to an earlier survey on public support for biometrics in travel documents (Bureau Veldkamp, 2003) and the now infamous biometrics practical trial '2b or not 2b' (BZK, 2005). However, the material does not contain much news. On the positive side, the Interior Ministry now publishes the whole thing on its own website; click HERE For Home Affairs sub-decision 6 dated 28 March 2013.
Update 8 August 2013: This week, Privacy First received some old documents from the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations again. These documents show, among other things, the Netherlands' European pioneering role in the field of biometrics in travel documents around 2001/2002. They also show that the Ministry of Security and Justice had different views on biometrics on (and next to...) travel documents. And here and there, there is even mention of DNA... However, it is not clear exactly what the different visions meant; many passages have been deleted. Thus, 12 years after the fact, this dossier unfortunately still remains a black box... Click HERE For Home Affairs sub-decision 7 dated 30 July 2013. What is still under the carpet at the Interior and Justice Ministry?
Update 19 December 2014: today, Privacy First received some old Wob chunks from the Interior Ministry again. These are mostly meaningless, largely black-labelled documents from the years 2001-2002, when the Netherlands initiated the (later) inclusion of fingerprints in all European passports at the European level. Click HERE For Home Affairs sub-decision 8 dated 17 December 2014. Of particular interest is the following passage in a letter from minister Van Boxtel dated 20 February 2002 to his European colleagues: "Some months ago (...) I informed you about the intentions in the Netherlands to include biometric features in travel documents (the passport and identity card). The purpose of this is primarily to introduce so-called look-alike prevent fraud. Secondarily, the use of biometrics offers the possibility of automated border control. (...) Indeed, my intention is to jointly determine in the coming months whether a basis for joint agreements exists and, if so, what could be the best way to achieve their formulation." This eventually resulted in the December 2014 European Passport Regulation.
A subsequent, hopefully more informative sub-decision from the Interior Ministry is unlikely to follow until spring 2015.
Update 1 September 2017: today, BZK partial decision no 9 has finally been published online, see HERE. Again, this material contains little new. However, interesting are the figures on look-alike fraud involving Dutch travel documents at Schiphol Airport in the period 2001-2002, see this letter and this follow-up letter From the Royal Military Police to the Interior Ministry (pdf). Further comments by Privacy First on e.g. may follow.
Update 30 August 2019: The above hyperlinks to the Wob sub-decisions on the website of the Interior Ministry appear to be partly outdated and no longer work. However, all already disclosed documents are digitally in Privacy First's possession and can be requested from us by anyone. Privacy First will also request BZK to update the relevant hyperlinks and republish the same. Incidentally, Privacy First heard from a reliable source that a tenth (also final) partial decision will soon be taken and published by the Interior Ministry.
Update 25 March 2020: Today, the 10th and final Home Affairs sub-decision was finally published, see HERE. Despite the relatively large amount of documents, this again contains little news. Any comments by Privacy First on e.g. may follow.
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