Dutch Tax Authority: 64M Files Unsearchable for Years

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 16:44:23 +0000
Data Privacy

The Dutch Ministry of Finance disclosed that the Belastingdienst maintained a data vault containing at least 64 million unsorted files created in 2019 for GDPR and archive law compliance purposes. Documents that should have been provided to the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission on Fraud and Service Provision (PEFD) and other parliamentary investigations were not searchable from this vault. The Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) has been informed and will incorporate the vault into ongoing oversight arrangements. An independent investigation has been launched to determine how this occurred.