Auke (not his real name) regularly participates in demonstrations. He wants to know if the government is monitoring him. Therefore, he requests from his municipality an overview of all times a government organization accessed his data from the Personal Records Database (BRP). The BRP contains, among other things, the name, address, and Citizen Service Number of all people living in the Netherlands. Government organizations can request this data if necessary. 

When he receives the overview, Auke can hardly believe his eyes. In ten years, the police accessed his data 350 times. Not only his own data but also that of his family. Auke files a complaint with the police. He wants to know why they accessed his data so often.

An automatic process?

The police inform him that they will not process his complaint. According to the police, his complaint is not about a specific action by a police officer but about an automatic process. And the police do not handle complaints about that.   

Obliged to respond

Auke is not satisfied and contacts us. Colleague Sari (not her real name) takes on his case and asks the police to process his complaint after all. But even then, the police refuse. Therefore, Sari starts an investigation. When we conduct an investigation, the police are legally obliged to answer our questions. 

Police continues to refuse

Our investigation shows that the complaint is indeed about specific actions by police officers. Every time someone searches for a person in the police system, data from the BRP is retrieved. The reason the police gave earlier for not processing the complaint is therefore incorrect. We ask the police to reconsider. But again, the police refuse. This time they say that processing the complaint takes too much time and would be too demanding for the organization. They do not explain well why this is so.

People like Auke drop out

I am very critical of the way the police behave. They seem more focused on rejecting the complaint than helping Auke. Meanwhile, he has informed us that he no longer trusts the police at all and does not want anything to do with them anymore. This shows the consequences of the polices attitude. People like Auke lose their trust and drop out, while it could have been avoided. The police could have looked for a solution and what was possible. 

 

This column appeared in De Telegraaf on Saturday, November 29, 2025. The person in the photo is not the person in the text.