‘Court ruling on retention obligation has no consequences for storing license plate data’

Declaring the European directive that authorities must keep telecom data for a longer period of time invalid has no consequences for the recording and storage of license plate data. Minister Ivo Opstelten of Justice answered this on Friday after parliamentary questions.

PvdA MP Astrid Oosenbrug wanted to know what the ruling of the European Court of Justice means for the bill for recording and storing license plate data by means of automatic number plate recognition. The Court ruled this week that the Directive regulating the retention of telecommunications data is invalid.

Opstelten wrote on Friday that, as far as he is concerned, the judgment has no consequences for the bill, which is currently before the House of Representatives for plenary discussion. The proposal states that the registration data of unknown persons from the police may also be stored for a certain period of time. For the time being, this only happens to fugitives and convicts. Their license plates are stored for four weeks to make the police work ‘more targeted’.

Opstelten says that the judgment has no consequences for the bill, because according to him it primarily concerns other data. In contrast to license plate data, telecommunications data can map out a ‘comprehensive picture’ of citizens’ behaviour, such as where they are and with whom they are in contact.

“The license plate data only provides insight into the location where a license plate of a vehicle was registered by a camera on a specific date and time. So it is a different kind of data. Although it is possible to gain insight into the location of a vehicle on specific dates or times on the basis of the stored registration data, no insight is obtained into the identity of the driver and into relationships between persons. In addition, the license plate data is collected in public space.”

In addition, Opstelten states that the proposed retention period of four weeks for license plate data is ‘considerably shorter’ than the European Directive, which allowed a storage period of no more than two years for telecommunications data. After all, not everyone can access that data; only an investigating officer may use this, the minister emphasizes.