The advocate general has condemned the way the tax office takes pictures of people driving so it can check up on their private use of company cars, the Telegraaf said on Friday.

The tax office takes thousands of pictures of cars on the roads every year which it uses to control mileage reports made by company car drivers.

However, this conflicts with privacy legislation and tax officials are not authorized to carry out such checks into people’s personal lives, the advocate general said in a ruling published on Friday.

The advocate general’s advice is usually accepted by the Supreme Court. If it does so in this case, the ruling will have ‘considerable implications for the way the tax office carries out its duties,’ EY tax advisor Arjo van Eijsden told the Telegraaf.

Privacy

Lawyer Guido de Bont took the case to the Supreme Court on behalf of a client who was faced with the photos in a dispute with the tax office over the use of his company car. Company car drivers do not have to pay tax over the value of the car if they drive fewer than 500 kilometres a year privately.

The photos give ‘extremely detailed insight into drivers movements,’ De Bont told the paper.