The District Court of Amsterdam has for the first time applied a ruling of the Supreme Court regarding the seizure of digital evidence. In a judgment of 13 September 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that a debtor must cooperate with the bailiff in order to seize digital evidence that is located on external servers. The debtor must make this evidence accessible to the bailiff by providing him with usernames and passwords. If, for instance, the bailiff seizes a laptop and discovers that the debtor uses services such as Dropbox or Google Drive, the debtor must provide him access to these services. If he does not oblige, the court may decide that certain statements of the plaintiff will be assumed to be correct and may deny the defendant the opportunity to provide evidence to the contrary.

Douwe Linders