Ruling
Overijssel District Court revokes DPA fine for wifi tracking in Enschede
- Date
- Status
- final
- Body
- Rechtbank Overijssel
- Reference
- ECLI:NL:RBOVE:2024:594 (zaaknummer ZWO 22/775)
- Amount
- €600,000
What it is about
The court upheld the municipality of Enschede's appeal, annulled the objection decision of 6 April 2022 and revoked the fine decision of 11 March 2021 (a fine of 600,000 euros for processing without a legal basis, Article 5(1)(a) read with Article 6(1) GDPR). The DPA had not sufficiently investigated or proven that natural persons were identifiable through hashed and truncated MAC addresses combined with location data, as recital 26 GDPR requires. The Council of State confirmed this ruling on 29 July 2026 (ECLI:NL:RVS:2026:4403).
What this means in practice
Whether pseudonymised or hashed identifiers are personal data depends on concrete evidence of identifiability in your setting, assessed against the means reasonably likely to be used under recital 26 GDPR; for a fine, the regulator must deliver that evidence in the decision itself. Record yourself which steps you take to rule out identification. The Council of State left open whether counting unique visitors via MAC addresses is in itself direct identification, so counting with MAC addresses remains risky.
The GDPR articles concerned
Source: Rechtspraak.nlchecked on 15 September 2026
Summary and practical reading by Praxikon. Not legal advice; the source prevails.
Connections
What connects to this development
Themes where this returns
The counterpart in the other law
- Article 3 AI Act: Definitions
- Article 5 AI Act: Prohibited AI practices
- Article 6 AI Act: Classification rules for high-risk AI systems
- Article 10 AI Act: Data and data governance
- Article 11 AI Act: Technical documentation
via Keeping records: record of processing, technical documentation and logs
- Article 12 AI Act: Record-keeping
via Keeping records: record of processing, technical documentation and logs
- Article 16 AI Act: Obligations of providers of high-risk AI systems
- Article 18 AI Act: Documentation keeping
via Keeping records: record of processing, technical documentation and logs
- Article 19 AI Act: Automatically generated logs
via Keeping records: record of processing, technical documentation and logs
- Article 25 AI Act: Responsibilities along the AI value chain
- Article 26 AI Act: Obligations of deployers of high-risk AI systems
- Article 50 AI Act: Transparency obligations for providers and deployers of certain AI systems
Case law8 of 14
- Council of State: 600,000 euro fine for wifi tracking in Enschede stays annulled
2026-07-29 · final, Raad van State, Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak
- Noord-Nederland District Court upholds DPA fine for village livestream, reduces it to 375 euros
2025-01-09 · status not established, Rechtbank Noord-Nederland
- Gelderland District Court: bankruptcy trustee is controller, DPA fine for unsecured hard drive cut to 58,125 euros
2025-08-07 · status not established, Rechtbank Gelderland
- Mousse: asking for Mr or Ms when selling a train ticket is not necessary
2025-01-09 · final, Hof van Justitie van de EU (Eerste kamer), Mousse tegen Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL) en SNCF Connect
- Interim relief judge: DPA must redact fine amount when giving an enforcement decision to complainants
2024-05-31 · status not established, Rechtbank Den Haag, voorzieningenrechter (kort geding, team handel)
- EU Court of Justice in KNLTB: a purely commercial interest can be a legitimate interest
2024-10-04 · final, Hof van Justitie van de Europese Unie
- Meta v Bundeskartellamt: competition authority may find a GDPR breach, strict conditions for legal bases behind personalised advertising
2023-07-04 · final, Hof van Justitie van de EU (Grote kamer), Meta Platforms Inc., Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd en Facebook Deutschland GmbH tegen Bundeskartellamt
- Schrems v Meta: no unlimited retention and aggregation of data for targeted advertising
2024-10-04 · final, Hof van Justitie van de EU (Vierde kamer), Maximilian Schrems tegen Meta Platforms Ireland Limited
Guidelines8 of 13
- Opinion 28/2024 on certain data protection aspects related to the processing of personal data in the context of AI models
2024-12-17 · final, European Data Protection Board (EDPB)
- Guidelines 02/2026 on Anonymisation
2026-07-07 · under consultation, European Data Protection Board (EDPB)
- Guidelines 03/2026 on web scraping in the context of generative AI
2026-07-07 · under consultation, European Data Protection Board (EDPB)
- Guidelines 1/2024 on processing of personal data based on Article 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest)
2024-10-08 · adopted, European Data Protection Board (EDPB)
- Guidelines 05/2020 on consent under Regulation 2016/679
2020-05-04 · final, European Data Protection Board (EDPB)
- Dutch DPA (AP) publishes position paper on the Digital Omnibus and the AI Omnibus
2026-01-13 · final, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens
- Guidelines 01/2025 on Pseudonymisation
2025-01-16 · adopted, European Data Protection Board (EDPB)
- Guidelines 07/2020 on the concepts of controller and processor in the GDPR
2021-07-07 · final, European Data Protection Board (EDPB)
Enforcement and fines8 of 11
- Coolblue fined 40,000 euros on objection for cookies without consent
2024-12-23 · status not established, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens
- Dutch DPA and tennis federation KNLTB end litigation: fine cut from 525,000 to at most 250,000 euros
2025-10-18 · status not established, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens
- 600,000 euro fine for AS Watson (Kruidvat) over tracking cookies without consent
2024-05-02 · annulled, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens
- 500 euro fine and penalty order for Stichting Oud Lemmer over webcam livestream
2021-07-09 · status not established, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens
- DPA cuts Kruidvat fine to 50,000 euros on objection
2025-05-27 · status not established, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens
- Ten municipalities fined a total of 250,000 euros for unlawful files on Muslim residents
2026-02-03 · final, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens
- Experian Netherlands fined 2.7 million euros for credit scoring without legal basis or information
2025-10-16 · final, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens
- 100 million euro fine for MLU B.V. (Yango) for transfers to Russia
2026-04-01 · status not established, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens
Legislation in motion6 of 10
- Proposal: definition of scientific research, purpose limitation and information duty for research (Article 4(38), 5(1)(b) and 13(5) GDPR)
2025-11-19 · under negotiation, Europese Commissie
- Council: Irish Presidency continues with a revised compromise, Antici Group 11 September 2026
2026-09-11 · under negotiation, Raad van de Europese Unie, Iers voorzitterschap
- Proposal: cookie rules move from ePrivacy to the GDPR, with new exceptions and a six-month rule (new Article 88a GDPR and Article 5(3) ePrivacy)
2025-11-19 · under negotiation, Europese Commissie
- Proposal: relative definition of personal data (Article 4(1) GDPR)
2025-11-19 · proposal, Europese Commissie
- European Parliament: joint ITRE-LIBE draft report, amendments tabled, no committee vote yet
2026-06-22 · under negotiation, Europees Parlement, commissies ITRE en LIBE (gezamenlijke commissie)
- Proposal: exception for biometric verification under the data subject's sole control (Article 9(2)(l) GDPR)
2025-11-19 · proposal, Europese Commissie