The municipality of Amsterdam has ordered the start-up Parking Alarm Clock to stop its activities. The app sends ‘forgetful parkers’ a message when a control vehicle passes the parked car, to avoid a fine. The municipality believes that the company is guilty of privacy violations and inciting tax evasion.
The municipality wants to initiate summary proceedings if Parking Alarm Clock does not cease its activities within seven days. Luis Roman, initiator of the service, is not planning to do the latter. “We see that a lot of unnecessary fines are being handed out. This causes frustration for people,” says Roman. “We are trying to solve this problem with Parking Alarm and do not intend to stop”. The start-up has hired a lawyer who is now investigating the case.
A spokesperson for the municipality says that the activities of Parking Alarm are contrary to city regulations. “As far as the municipality of Amsterdam is concerned, parking alarm facilitates users to consciously avoid parking costs as much as possible,” said the spokesperson. Paid parking has been introduced, according to the spokesperson, “to make optimal use of the scarce space in Amsterdam and to keep the city accessible”. “By organizing this as well as possible, we ensure efficient use of (parking) space and a liveable city. The proceeds from paid parking are also invested in projects for the city,” said the spokesman.
Parking alarm uses dash cams that are linked to a platform that reads video images. Anyone who receives a message from the app that a scan car is driving through the street has five minutes to pay the parking costs and avoid a fine. The start-up charges 1.49 euros for each warning message received. Until now, the app has been available in a limited number of cities in addition to Amsterdam, including Utrecht, Rotterdam and Leiden.
Since municipalities started using scan cars, the number of parking fines has risen sharply. Inquiries from Het Parool showed that motorists in Amsterdam received additional assessments worth almost 30 million euros in 2018 because no parking fee had been paid. In 2012, the last year before the city introduced the scan car, that was 18.5 million euros. Since the scan car, car users have also opted to pay parking fees more often, because the chances of getting caught are greater.