Police ordered to destroy personal data of citizens
image: Wesley Tingey via Unsplash
The Dutch police must stop storing personal data indefinitely. This was decided by the Council of State following several publications by investigative journalism platform ‘Follow the Money’ (FTM). Bart Schermer, Professor of Law and Digital Technology, assisted in the investigation.
The police force in the Netherlands stores a vast amount of information on millions of citizens indefinitely. They claim that the data might be useful at some point in the future to help solve cold cases. Information gathered includes data from traffic checks, surveillance, emergency services and street patrols. In some cases, it was even recorded that someone has a pet.
FTM had previously investigated how the decision on retaining this data came about. Although there was much criticism about the retention period from within the police and legal experts on privacy, former Justice and Security minister, Ferdinand Grapperhaus, supported the decision to ignore these concerns. ‘This is out of the question’, Schermer claimed in a previous article. ‘The police are here to enforce the law and they can’t just decide that this Act is inconvenient for them.’ In the meantime, the publications by FTM on the retention periods of data have led the Council of State to instruct the police to stop storing personal data indefinitely.