ANPR mass surveillance

Under the Dutch Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) Act, the travel movements of millions of motorists continuously end up in a central police database for 4 weeks, regardless of whether one is suspected of anything. This is a massive privacy violation. Privacy First is pursuing a lawsuit to render this Act inoperative.

Privacy First has been fighting the mass registration of everyone's travel movements by ANPR camera surveillance for years: Automatic Number Plate Recognition. Despite widespread criticism, the controversial ANPR Act (art. 126 jj Sv.) entered into force on 1 January 2019. Under this law, through countless ANPR cameras, the license plates and locations of millions of cars in the Netherlands are since then continuously stored for 4 weeks in a central police database for, among other things, investigation and prosecution. This is totally unnecessary, utterly disproportionate and also ineffective, several studies have shown in recent years. Surveillance is lacking and the system can be easily abused. The current ANPR law therefore constitutes a massive privacy violation and has no place in a free democratic constitutional state. Following an earlier summary proceedings Privacy First has been conducting a proceedings on the merits against the State to have the ANPR legislation set aside for breach of European privacy law. Through Pro Bono Connect, Privacy First has engaged law firm CMS to pursue this lawsuit on our behalf. This case is also supported by the Digital Freedom Fund. Given the European case law on the matter, Privacy First considers the chances of a successful court case to be extremely high.