Police Rotterdam – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2022)

This dispute was between a divorced father (the data subject) and the chief of police of Rotterdam (the controller). In 2020, the data subject found out that Veilig Thuis (an advice and reporting centre for domestic violence and child abuse) had registered two reports on him in their database. The first registration stated that he had committed domestic violence and that subsequently he was temporarily denied entrance to the home he had previously shared with his ex-wife. According to the data subject, these allegations were unfounded. According to the data subject, the second registration was also inaccurate since the report did not adequately state that his ex-wife had moved to a new place with their son, without informing him of the new location. He requested to have the first report deleted, and the other rectified, but Veilig Thuis refused. The data subject then brought the issue before Court, which decided that Veilig Thuis did not have a substantial interest in retaining the personal data, and that it had to delete the first report and amend the second one. Because Veilig Thuis had received the information from the Rotterdam police, the data subject subsequently requested the police to delete the inaccurate personal data and rectify the reports. The police, however, claimed that the information was accurate, and refused to rectify their files on the data subject. The data subject then brought the issue before the District Court of First Instance of Rotterdam (hereinafter the Court), basing his claim on Article 12 GDPR on transparent information, communication and modalities for the exercise of the rights of the data subject, and his right to obtain from the controller the rectification of inaccurate personal data pursuant to Article 16 GDPR. The Court upheld the claim. Regarding the first registration (on alleged domestic violence), the Court considered that, in 2019, the police had decided not to further investigate the allegations of domestic violence brought forward by the data subject's ex-wife. Hence, the Court stated that the report needed to be rectified in the sense that it must speak of "alleged" domestic violence. Moreover, the Court found that it must clearly follow from the report that the temporary ban to enter his previous home was instated by the judge in the divorce procedure and had nothing to do with the alleged domestic violence. Regarding the second registration, the Court found that the report did not accurately display that the new address his ex-wife had moved into with their son, and that he was not provided this information. The Court concluded that the personal data held by the Police was inaccurate, and ordered the police to grant the data subject's right to rectification and correct it.