Police fined for privacy violation while using camera car in Rotterdam – IT Pro – News

The Dutch data protection authority fined the Dutch police €50,000. Cameras were deployed in Rotterdam during the corona period in 2020, but privacy risks had not been mapped out and too many images were collected.

According to the Dutch Data Protection Authority the police have broken the law in several ways with the specific use of cameras. It involved the deployment of two cars with 360-degree cameras which were used for five weeks. they were deployed in Rotterdam in May 2020. The goal of the Rotterdam municipality was to check whether people observe the 1.5-metre distance. With these cars many people were recognizable and the collected images were displayed in a control room, archived and could be forwarded to other police posts.

First, under the General Data Protection Regulation and the Police Data Act, a data protection impact assessment whether a data protection impact assessment should be carried out. It is a tool to map the privacy risks of data processing before use, so that steps can be taken afterwards to reduce those risks. According to the AP, that assessment was needed because police might have known that using the cameras likely posed a high privacy risk. Furthermore, the use of cars meant that personal data of large groups of people would be collected in the public space, without people knowing that the images were being made and how they were being used.

Furthermore, the AP points out that the cameras also made pictures at times when no violations of the corona measures were detected, for example when there was no group formation. The cars produced recognizable images of people, and this happened even in places other than the designated “hot spots”. As a result, too many images were created and archived that were not necessary for the performance of the police task.

It is still possible to appeal against the fine imposed, even if the police have acknowledged that the law has been violated on several points with the use of the two camera cars. Last year, the Dutch data protection authority already did this ruled that the municipality of Rotterdam acted illegally using cameras to see at the moment during the lockdown if people were keeping enough distance in public.