Ethnic registration is illegal: watchdog

Local councils which are registering the ethnic origins of young trouble makers and other at-risk youngsters have been ordered to stop it immediately by the privacy watchdog CBP.


In 2006, 21 local authority areas with a high concentration of immigrants from the Caribbean Antilles islands were given permission to register the ethnic origin of young troublemakers. But that permit expired last December and no new permit has been applied for, the CBP says.
Therefore ‘there is no legal foundation for processing ethnic details,’ the CBP said in a statement on its website. ‘This means that the use of these particular personal details… is illegal and should be stopped immediately.’
At the end of last year, the government dropped plans to set up a national data bank with information on young Antillean and Aruban trouble-makers. The government’s highest advisory body, the council of state, said earlier that the register could be set up because it was in the public interest.
According to the Volkskrant, Rotterdam has been recording the ethnic origin of troublemakers since 2002.
Supporters of registration say it would allow campaigns and support to be targeted at specific groups.
Opponents say it is stigmatising to regard third-generation immigrants as not being Dutch.

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