Balancing Act: Privacy and Security in the Digital Society
At the VNG General Assembly in late 2022, Dutch municipalities agreed on several principles for the digital society. Important decisions were made about the balance between privacy and security. With all the public events taking place in the Netherlands at this time of year, we would like to take a look at this topic again.
The principles provide guidance and a common framework for dealing with the dilemmas posed by digitalisation in public spaces. For example, with these principles, municipalities have decided not to use biometric surveillance, such as facial recognition, and not to store images permanently. The principles also include guidelines on ethics, evaluation and transparency, as well as citizens' control over their data. The principles set out the ambitions that the councils intend to put into practice in the coming years.
Triple helix collaboration
The principles were developed in collaboration with municipalities, police, knowledge institutions, businesses, VNG and Security Delta (HSD) in the Impact Coalition Safety & Security.
Andries Kok, directeur Lokaal Bestuur en Informatiesamenleving VNG: "We felt it was necessary to update the existing principles, and we wanted to do this together with the municipalities and in consultation with residents, knowledge institutions, market parties and interest groups. The rapid developments in the field of digitalisation made this update necessary. These principles are not meant to be an end point, but a stimulating new starting point for the discussion about our digital society".