Voorschoten municipality

Description

The Dutch DPA has imposed a fine of EUR 30,000 on Voorschoten municipality. The municipality had kept information about household waste for longer than necessary and had not sufficiently informed residents. In 2018 and 2019, the municipality of Voorschoten had replaced the waste garbage cans for houses and the underground containers for apartments. These bins were fitted with chips with numbers that were linked to a house address. The aim was to increase the collection of separate waste by limiting the amount of residual waste that residents could dispose of. However, the municipality stored the waste collection data of households for too long. For example, garbage can data was kept for as long as it was in use and underground container token data was stored for five years. According to the DPA, this is much longer than is necessary to check whether a household is exceeding the permitted amount. In addition, the municipality did not sufficiently inform residents about the use of their personal data when collecting waste.