Privacy statement

NL Agency respects the privacy of those visiting its website and takes measures to keep the personal information it obtains from them confidential and within the bounds of the Personal Data Protection Act. The information that visitors provide is used to fill their requests and to permit us to provide our services. We use the data we receive solely for the purpose for which it was obtained.

NL Agency retains general information on visitors to allow it to compile statistics on visitors to its website. This is to allow NL Agency to improve its services continually. This statistical data contains no personal information.

Confidential information

One example: NL Agency receives a large amount of company and manufacturing data in reports or grant applications. This information can be considered confidential. It is usually competitively sensitive information. This is the type of data from which one can derive information about business operations and production processes, or about product sales or the circle of customers and suppliers.

Government Information (Public Access) Act (WOB)

NL Agency treats these data as confidential. That means that, in principle, we refuse to grant a request from a third party to provide information about operational and manufacturing data. This is what the Government Information (Public Access) Act requires. However, if the requested operational or manufacturing data contains environmental information, then the WOB requires that NL Agency weigh the importance of the requested disclosure against

• the importance of business confidentiality
• the government's economic or financial interests
• the importance of protecting the environment
• the importance of protecting companies’ security or preventing sabotage.

Contact with data provider

Should a request arrive for information on operational or manufacturing data that has impact on the environment, NL Agency will first contact the company that provided the data to ensure a proper weighing of interests. If it should prove that providing the information would endanger the company's competitive position, it can happen that this interest weighs so heavily that the requested information is not, or is only partially, provided.
The WOB is strict concerning environmental information on emissions. Data on emissions must almost always be made public.