A provincial Dutch police policy of compiling the personal data of teenagers is to be investigated by the Dutch Board for the Protection of Personal Data (CPB), a spokesman of the South Holland Police Department said Tuesday, according to dpa. The move comes after police in several cities in South Holland in the past months had approached teenagers on the streets for their names, addresses and contact details as well as taken digital photographs of the teens, all of which were then placed in the police's own electronic database. According to Dutch law, authorities are only allowed to collect and archive personal data of citizens that have committed a crime and only after it is proven that archiving the data may protect other citizens or help solve a crime. The South Holland police claim that compiling personal data of teenagers frequenting public areas helps prevent teenagers from causing problems later. The South Holland police spokesman added that internal regulations were established for the use of the personal data, and a copy of the regulations were sent to the CPB, which is responsible for protecting the privacy of Dutch citizens.
