This Budget Day, the Schoof administration presented the budget for the coming year. In doing so, the cabinet also gave insight into the laws the House of Representatives will vote on in the coming year. The government was criticized in recent weeks by various experts; with a number of new laws, the government would create far-reaching powers for itself. This data hunger is at odds with citizens' privacy interests. In this article, we briefly outline the upcoming legislation.
Although the government strives to comply with the AVG, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (AP) will receive 49 million euros instead of the estimated 100 million euros the regulator would need to supervise effectively. "One hundred million is minimally needed to prevent new allowance affairs and face challenges with digitalization and algorithms. But the budget is stuck at 49 million. That is not enough to meet even the most basic requirements of good supervision," the regulator said in a report by the ANP.
The Schoof administration announces that it will address national security on the digital front. This of course includes cybersecurity, but the cabinet is also focusing on foreign money stealing in civil society organizations and the money laundering approach. The cabinet also wants to expand the powers of police and financial regulators. These bills all touch on the right to privacy.
The Cabinet has announced to continue working on the Money Laundering Plan Act. Among other things, the law would prohibit cash payments higher than 3,000.00 euros. The possibility of joint transaction monitoring between banks and in cooperation with the government has been harmonized with the advent of the AML Regulation. There is a higher threshold for joint monitoring under the European regulation where privacy considerations and criminal safeguards must be tested before proceeding with joint monitoring. Read more here about the difference between the Dutch and European money laundering approaches and the implications for TMNL.
The government is concerned about the influence of foreign financial flows on civil society organizations. To combat this problem, the cabinet took the Transparency of Civil Society Organizations Act (Wtmo) off the shelf. Due to numerous objections from civil society, consideration of this bill stalled for years. The law requires foundations and associations to register personal data of members and volunteers. The administration obligation would create too much of a burden on organizations and store an unnecessary amount of data. Moreover, the law provides certain government organizations with far-reaching powers to request this data. Read more about the criticism of this bill.
The Ministry of Finance submitted two bills last summer that would create far-reaching powers for the Financial Markets Authority (AFM) and De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB). The proposals were previously criticized by lawyers in the Financieele Dagblad. The proposed laws would allow the AFM and DNB to request more customer data from financial service providers. This would include data such as cell phone numbers, unique telephone identification numbers and virtually all details of banking transactions. Read more about the criticism of the bills.
