Pilot project for digital duty to report with area bans in Rotterdam, Leeuwarden and Utrecht
The municipalities of Rotterdam, Leeuwarden and Utrecht will be conducting a pilot for the digital duty to report for disruptive football supporters. This will allow municipalities to monitor whether hooligans who have been issued an area ban are complying. During the experiment, a small portable unit is used: the Mini-ID, which can be used to comply with the duty to report with a fingerprint scan. During the pilot, we will test the reporting process and technology. The pilot is scheduled to launch in November.
Physical duty to report
The mayor can impose an administrative area ban on people who have disrupted public order. The mayor can link a duty to report to this to ensure that the individual does not enter the prohibited area. This could, for example, be in the vicinity of a football stadium where a match is being played at that time. Currently, individuals subject to a duty to report must still report to the police station at a specified time. In practice, a physical duty to report is now rarely imposed as it is considered a severe measure that may be disproportionate to the offence, and it strains police capacity who are then required to receive and register the reporting person on location.
Digital duty to report
A digital duty to report is already legally admissible but is not yet imposed in practice as the technology is still under development. The Ministry of Justice and Security, together with the municipalities of Rotterdam, Leeuwarden and Utrecht, will test this technology with the Mini-ID pilot. This small, portable box enables these individuals to fulfil their duty to report and registers any failure to comply with the area ban. Identification of the person subject to a duty to report takes place beforehand using fingerprinting. The pilot will assess the reliability of the system, security and privacy of users, among other aspects.
The pilot project
In the first phase of the pilot, 10 volunteers from the participating organisations will carry the Mini-ID. They will receive a fictitious area ban and must report at specific times over a two-month period. In this phase, subjects will test the technical and organisational operation of the Mini-ID. In the second test phase, individuals who are effectively subject to an area ban with a duty to report will begin using the Mini-ID. In this phase, in addition to the trial participants, the Mini-ID will also be used by individuals from the three municipalities that are actually subject to an area ban combined with the duty to report.