Government plans to store footage of car number plates for up to four weeks to help solve ‘serious crimes’ may conflict with European privacy law, legal experts say in Thursday’s Trouw.

On Tuesday, the European court of justice said government schemes to store private individual’s phone and internet data is illegal because of the implications for privacy.

This may also apply to justice minister Ivo Opstelten’s plans to store car number plate information, lawyers told Trouw.

Although the justice ministry says the plan does not conflict with privacy laws, lawyer Wouter Dammers said: ‘The problem is that everyone’s number plate would be stored.’

Court

Meanwhile, Dutch privacy activists have joined forces with a British organisation in an appeal to the European court of human rights about the use of tapped internet traffic by security services.

The organisation Burgers tegen Plasterk (citizens against home affairs minister Ronald Plasterk) want to stop the Netherlands using information which was obtained illegally by foreign services such as America’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ.

By joining the British campaign, the Dutch lobbyists can avoid having to take the matter first to the Dutch courts, lawyer Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm told television current affairs show Nieuwsuur.

Plasterk told MPs on Wednesday evening Dutch security services would continue to work with foreign services. However, his permission would be required before large amounts of data about Dutch citizens was handed over, the minister said.