Netherlands: Privacy and data banks

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The Registration Chamber, the official body for data protection in the Netherlands, has issued a warning saying that the privacy of citizens is seriously endangered by the explosive growth of data banks. Data on an average individual are stored in no less than four hundred government and commercial databases. Banks, companies and public bodies have attempted to increase the protection of data held on their computers but the Registration Chamber favours the introduction of a new "Privacy Enhancing Technology" (PET) developed by the Digicash corporation in Amsterdam. This allows for personal data to be stored in an encrypted, anonymous way. In a report issued together with the Dutch TNO research centre and the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada, the Registration Chamber sets out the possibilities of the new technology. Its chairman Peter Hustinx said: "It will cost about 200 million guilders a year to introduce this new technology throughout the country. But at the same time it will allow institutions to spend less on security measures." In his opinion, the current situation of widespread and detailed registrations is in violation of the European privacy guidelines issued in July 1995. "The Chamber will eventually take measures against companies that continue to work in the traditional way," he says. The report shows that it is feasible to develop a "digital mask" that protects for example the customer paying with a credit card against being registered in a number of commercial databases used for direct marketing purposes. It remains to be seen whether the powerful consumer products industry will surrender its most useful marketing instrument without a fight. Over the last two years, a giant campaign around the "Air Miles" concept (collect air miles with each purchase by identifying yourself with a card) has allowed them to collect massive amounts of data on the purchasing behaviour of individual customers, thus creating an invaluable marketing tool.

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