The Gelderland court has recently passed a judgment and the appeals have been declared unfounded. The court states that NS has a legal basis for collecting and processing the data and that this is necessary for the execution of the agreement between NS and the traveler. Without this information, it is impossible to check whether the subscription money has been paid, whether it has been correctly checked in and out, whether the correct travel sum has been paid and whether there has been abuse or fraud.

A train passenger who thought that the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) should take action against the NS because he cannot travel anonymously with his season ticket has been proven wrong by the court. The judge finds that the AP has motivated sufficiently that NS does not violate the privacy rules. According to the court, the processing of personal data when checking in and out is necessary for the use of the NS season ticket.

In the NS Privacy Statement www.ns.nl/privacy you can read which personal data NS uses when a traveler uses an OV chip card. If a traveler travels with a personal public transport chip card issued by NS (i.e. a public transport chip card issued by NS), NS will use that personal data (for example, map data, bank details and travel data) to facilitate the journey. 

NS only processes necessary data that the traveler has provided to NS to use a registered travel product. The Dutch Data Protection Authority has checked this and concluded that NS does not violate the privacy rules.

Anonymous chip card.

If a traveler does not want to provide personal data (to NS), the traveler can travel with an anonymous OV chip card (ie an unregistered OV chip card). The chip of the anonymous OV chip card does not contain any personal information such as name and address details. NS also has no insight into this information if the personal OV chip card has been issued by another carrier, Translink or Business Card Provider.

When a traveler travels with an OV chip card, the transporter passes on the data to Translink. Translink is then responsible for handling the (travel) transactions. NS engages third parties for the implementation of IT services. These third parties only process the data for the benefit of NS and for no other purpose.

The above applies to individual travel data. In the context of, for example, the public information management of the National Public Transport Council (NOVB), statistics that cannot be traced to individuals are kept up to date about the use of public transport that is shared with third parties such as concession providers.

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