Juridisch Advies NL

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Legal advice for The Netherlands. English posts allowed. Give context for your case. Be wise, anonymise your case. When answering, refer to law and/or jurisprudence.

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When a law requires you to supply information that does not exist -- then what? Or when you cannot comply because you don’t have what is required? (fedia.io)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This question is inspired by Belgian law but there is no Belgian law forum and I think it’s likely that Netherlands would have the same problem. So answers w.r.t. Dutch law would be interesting enough.

It’s increasingly common for law to mandate that people give the government their email address in various situations. If someone has no email address, I have to wonder how can they be expected to comply with the law? When the law requires disclosure of information that does not exist, is it implied that we must take necessary steps to make that information come into existence in order to disclose it? Is it implied by that law that we must enter the private marketplace and subscribe to email service, then periodically check our email?

I happen to have email addresses but I refuse to disclose them to users of Micosoft Outlook or Google. That includes government offices because the gov uses MS Outlook and simultaneously does not use PGP. Since my workflow of non-disclosure to MS & Google has ensured that email has the tiniest of roles in my life, it would not be a big step for me to nix email altogether and end my subscriptions. But I need to know if it’s even legal for me to do so.

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[–] Eylrid 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What's stopping you from creating an email address that you never use for anything else?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

My question is what is forcing me to create an email address.

Does the law force me to create an email address (knowing that it would then be unavoidably used to facilitate the sender sharing whatever they want about me with Microsoft)?

It’s important to note that if your email address falls in the hands of a gov or org, they will use it without encryption. They will share willy nilly anything they want with Microsoft (their email provider) in the loop. And if you make a GDPR art.17 request to have your email address erased from their records after they abuse it, they ignore those requests and continue using your email address. So it’s best not to give them an email address to begin with.

(edit) govs and orgs seem to always put my full name in the e-mail headers, sometimes even including my middle name. And they usually greet me by surname. This ensures that Microsoft trivially knows exactly who to associate the content with. IMO it infringes on the data minimisation principle.