Government agencies hold an awful lot of data on citizens. More and more methods are being developed to make use of this data. Instead of using it for the citizen, government agencies seem more interested in how they can use this data against the citizen. The Data Processing by Cooperation Act (WGS) is another example of this.
The need to combat fraud and the offensive against undermining crime is completely unhinged in the Netherlands. Municipalities violate the rights of citizens to check whether they fulfill their duties. The most recent incident occurred in the municipality of Zaandam, where the municipality abused its powers. Sensitive data of citizens were shared without concrete suspicions of fraud. Home visits also took place under false pretenses.
Unrestrained data processing by municipalities has far-reaching consequences for citizens. Citizens are put on blacklists without concrete suspicions, followed in public spaces and subjected to unannounced home visits. In many cases, the citizens turn out to be innocent. Even if that were not the case, the enforcement tools deployed are still far too invasive for the violations they are supposed to detect.
