The fines issued by the municipality of Amsterdam by means of a scan car may be in violation of the privacy law. This is what Parking Alarm, the company behind an app that should protect you from such fines, says after an investigation.
The car park alarm clock claims to have conducted the investigation because of the doubts that the municipality’s working method raises among various legal experts. When issuing a ticket, a human check must take place according to the privacy law (AVG). According to Prof. Arno R. Lodder, professor of internet law at the Free University of Amsterdam, it is unlikely that the municipality will actually carry out this check. On his blog he states that samples are likely to be taken. Also mr. Yuri Benjamins, Parking Alarm’s lawyer, has doubts about this method. “Officials would have to manually assess thousands of photos per day, which seems unlikely to me,” counsel said.
Figures that Parking Alarm has requested by means of a WOB request would confirm the suspicions. In 2018, the last year for which all figures are known, 685,359 fines were handed out by the scan car, according to Parking Alarm. The situation scans, as the municipality calls them, contain several photos of the situation. A civil servant examines the situation and then assesses whether there has been a violation. Assuming three photos per situation, that would amount to more than 5,000 photos that officials should view per day.
Legal wrangling
The Parking Alarm investigation is a new chapter in the battle that the company is waging against the scan cars and the municipality of Amsterdam. The municipality banned the app, which warns users when a scan car arrives at their car and gives the option to pay for parking remotely. Parking alarm clock appealed against this and seems to want to give an extra boost with this research.