The Netherlands needs a privacy watchdog with sharper teeth to make sure government, companies and individuals are more careful with people’s personal details, Jacob Kohnstamm, head of the privacy watchdog CBP, said on Wednesday.

‘There are almost limitless options to store and process information, Kohnstamm said at the publication of the CBP’s annual report. And, the increase in digitalisation and globalisation make it increasingly difficult to keep abreast of everything being done to private information.
Technology is making it possible to follow people’s patterns of behaviour and it is often unclear who is collecting what information and what they are doing with it, the privacy chief said.
Earlier this year, the CBP threatened to fine Google over information collected while it was photographing streets for its Street View system.
Among the privacy issues investigated by the CBP last year were the processing of information about student travel collected via the public transport smart card and the ethnic registration of Roma in two local council areas.