The Dutch Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens AP) believes that insufficient evidence has been provided to demonstrate that special investigating officers (BOAs) in public transport need access to passport photos in the driver's license register. The AP states this in an assessment of a bill proposed by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. Access to passport photos would help special investigating officers to identify individuals more quickly, for example when enforcing regulations against nuisance or fare evasion.
The AP concludes that access to passport photos in the driver's license register is not a suitable means of achieving that goal. This is because most arrests on public transport involve people without a driver's license. The effectiveness of the proposed access has therefore not been sufficiently demonstrated.
Because this involves the extensive processing of personal data, access to the driver's license register without clear necessity may be in violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
OV-NL, the public transport industry association, indicates that most travelers who are stopped by special investigating officers do not have a driver's license. As a result, they believe that access to the driver's license register will only make a limited contribution to faster identification. This signal from the field shows that the effectiveness of the proposed measure is uncertain.
The AP understands that public transport enforcement officers must be able to do their work safely. In some situations, they may use personal data for this purpose. However, this is only permitted if it is clear that this is effective. According to the AP, this is not the case when using the driver's license register.
In addition, the AP emphasizes the importance of clear legal boundaries in order to prevent access from extending beyond what is strictly necessary. For example, by ensuring that a passport photo is only visible for 30 seconds and cannot be stored.
