ANPR

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.

Wooden court gavel

On January 1st, 2019, the Dutch ANPR Act (art. 126 jj Sv.) came into effect. Under this law, the license plates and locations of millions of cars in the Netherlands (i.e. everyone's travel movements) are continuously monitored by ANPR cameras and stored for 4 weeks, , in a central police database for criminal investigation and prosecution purposes. This is totally unnecessary, completely disproportionate and, moreover, ineffective, as various studies have shown in recent years. Supervision is lacking and the system can easily be abused. The current ANPR Act therefore constitutes a massive privacy violation and has no place in a free democracy under the rule of law. Privacy First has started litigation against the Dutch government to have the ANPR legislation repealed due to violation of European privacy laws. Through Pro Bono Connect, Privacy First has engaged law firm CMS to pursue this lawsuit (summary proceedings and case on the merits) 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 likelihood of successful litigation extremely high.