In recent years, Privacy First has filed several lawsuits on various issues. We don't start a lawsuit lightly. We always engage in conversation first, explain the problem and indicate what needs to change. In many cases this helps effectively and a solution requires only a different way of looking at things. In the extreme, going to court is inevitable.
The UBO register of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce contained public information about all ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) of all companies and other legal entities (including foundations and associations) incorporated in the Netherlands, with all the privacy and security risks that this entails. In 2021, Privacy First therefore challenged the Dutch government about the UBO register in court.
In 2018-2019, a broad coalition (including Privacy First) brought a landmark lawsuit against the Dutch government to invalidate the System Risk Indication (SyRI). SyRI was used by the government to use secret algorithms to surreptitiously profile people en masse for their risk of defrauding Social Security benefits.
In the Citizens v Plasterk case, a coalition of citizens and organisations (including Privacy First) demanded that the AIVD and MIVD stop receiving and using illegally collected foreign intelligence on Dutch citizens, for example through the US NSA's infamous PRISM programme.
In 2014, the European Court of Justice declared the European Data Retention Directive invalid. According to the Court, the long-term recording of communication data of everyone, without concrete suspicion, violated the right to privacy. Following this, a broad coalition (including Privacy First) challenged the Dutch Telecom Data Retention Act in summary proceedings.
During the 2014-2020 period, the chairman of Privacy First fought several lawsuits against requiring mandatory license plate registration and electronic payment for parking. Privacy First brought these lawsuits to preserve and strengthen the right to anonymity in public spaces. This right has been under increasing pressure in recent years.
To preserve and strengthen the right to anonymity in public spaces, the chairman of Privacy First during the period 2015-2019 filed multiple lawsuits against section speed controls at highways.
Since 2010, Privacy First, together with 19 co-plaintiffs (Dutch citizens), has been conducting a large-scale lawsuit against one of the worst privacy violations in Dutch history: the storage of everyone's fingerprints under the new Dutch Passport Act. Partly under pressure from this lawsuit, the storage of fingerprints was largely halted.
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