Privacy First Annual Report 2013

Privacy constitutes the basis of our democratic constitutional State. However, of all human rights in the Netherlands, the right to privacy finds itself under the most pressure. This observation was the reason for Privacy First to be founded in March 2009. Ever since, retaining and reinforcing everyone's right to privacy is what the Privacy First Foundation has been striving for on a daily basis. Partly due to the efforts of Privacy First, in recent years large scale privacy violations have either been brought to a halt or have been prevented, privacy awareness in Dutch society has increased and ever more privacy friendly initiatives see the light of day. Think of the discontinuation of the central storage of fingerprints under the Dutch Passport Act, the introduction of Dutch ID cards without fingerprints, compulsory Privacy Impact Assessments and 'privacy by design' as part of new Dutch legislation. In 2013 this positive turn-around continued. However, there have been less positive developments as well. We are keen to elucidate this for you in our annual report 2013.