New Cabinet rules could lead to homeowners data being leaked, privacy regulator warns

Homeowners’ personal data could fall into the wrong hands under the new rules that the Cabinet wants to implement. This warning was issued by the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP). The privacy regulator wants the rule change to be delayed until the issues have been solved.

All the data about home owners can be found at Kadaster, including names, birth dates, and how much money they spent on their purchase of the home. The Cabinet wants to give some companies access to this data. "They can use this to create software for notaries, for example, so that they can draw up deeds more efficiently," the AP cited as an example.

The regulator warned that unreliable parties could also gain access to the data. The information could then be sold “for example, to companies who want to send advertisements to these people.”

Once the data has been sent then this cannot be undone. It is not stated within the proposal how that will be prevented. According to the AP, the government is “opening the tap without being able to control where the data flows to.”

AP’s advice is aimed towards the housing minister Mona Keijzer. The Dutch Data Protection Authority is recommending that she only give companies access to the data once they have been recognized by Kadaster. The company would then have to check if the companies are following the rules and take action when they don’t.