The appeal by Privacy First and 19 citizens against the Dutch government takes place today. Privacy First is of the opinion that the new Dutch Passport Act violates the right to privacy. Despite criticism from the Dutch House of Representatives, the Dutch government recently decided to push this controversial law ahead. The case of Privacy First primarily concentrates on the centralised storage of fingerprints. This lawsuit is the first of its kind.

Clarification
On February 2, 2011, the Privacy First Foundation and 21 co-plaintiffs (citizens) were declared inadmissible by the district court of The Hague in our civil case against the Netherlands regarding the 2009 Dutch Passport Act. A proposal by the Dutch Minister of the Interior, Ms. Liesbeth Spies, to revise the Passport Act has been presented to the House of Representatives on 17 October this year. However, in this legislative proposal the original provision (Article 4b) concerning a centralised database remains intact for the greater part. Under this provision, biometric data of every Dutch citizen will be used for criminal investigation and prosecution purposes as well as intelligence work, disaster control and counter-terrorism. This constitutes a flagrant violation of, among other things, European privacy law. Efforts by individual citizens to challenge this through individual administrative court cases have thus far not yielded any results, since the administrative courts proved unwilling to evaluate the provision in question. Nevertheless, the Dutch Council of State (Raad van State) has recently made a preliminary reference to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg regarding the European Passport Regulation. In anticipation of the Court’s response, all Dutch administrative proceedings have been put on hold for at least one and a half years, which means that protesting citizens have to fend for themselves during that period without valid identity documents. Enough reason for Privacy First to again haul up the civil-law sails in the public interest and to appeal in our Passport Act lawsuit.

To that end we have today presented our Statement of Appeal to the Court of Appeal in The Hague. In this Statement Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm and Vita Zwaan (SOLV Attorneys) outline why Privacy First and co-plaintiffs have to be declared admissible. Subsequently, it will be possible for the Passport Act to be legally scrutinized in its entirety by the court and be measured up against higher law, including European privacy legislation. Our entire Statement of Appeal can be downloaded HERE (in Dutch). The Appeals Court of The Hague is expected to deliver its judgment before the summer.

Urgent appeal
Privacy First makes an urgent appeal to all Dutch citizens to contribute to the financing of this lawsuit. This can be done by donating on account number 49.55.27.521 attn. Stichting Privacy First in Amsterdam, mentioning the following reference: ‘Paspoortproces’. We kindly thank you for your support!