Data Subject versus The Dutch Tax and Customs Administration (Belastingdienst) under the authority of the Minister of Finance – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2025)

In 2022, the data subject was notified that since 2014 he was registered in the Fraud Signaling Facility (Fraudesignaleringsvoorziening – FSV), a database used by the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration to register indications of fraud. The FSV did not comply with the GDPR and therefore since 2020 was no longer in use. The Minister of Finance investigated the incident on its own initiative and found that data subject's data had the not been shared with other agencies, the registration did not negatively impact the data subject and therefore he was not eligible for compensation. In November 2023, the data subject submitted an access request under Article 15 GDPR for his personal data stored in the FSV to the Minister. The Minister granted this request with a ministerial decision and provided an overview of his registration. The data subject disagreed with this ministerial decision and filed an objection claiming that the record provided was incomplete. Then the Minister provided additional data. The data subject filed an appeal against the ministerial decision on objection before the North Holland District Court (HAA) maintaining that the data remained incomplete. Furthermore, the data subject claimed that the FSV registration had long-term harmful effects on his reputation and business due to unlawful sharing with third parties and led to negative decisions by other agencies. Lastly, he seeked €25,000 in non-material damages. First, the court found no evidence that the data subject’s FSV data had been shared with other authorities. The negative decisions from other agencies were received before his registration in 2014. Second, the court also stated it was not competent to award damages in this case. According to national procedural law, only a civil court could assess claims for damages stemming from factual acts of the public administration, like data sharing, as the administrative court can only assess damages directly linked to unlawful decisions. The court concluded that the registration or hypothetical sharing of data did not qualify as such. Consequently, the court ruled that the appeal against the ministerial decision on objection unfounded.