Material Scope - General
4 pending referralsReferral C-492/23 (Russmedia Digital and Inform Media Press, 3 Aug 2023) 
Referral C-740/22 (Endemol Shine Finland, 2 Dec 2022)
Referral C-659/22 (Ministerstvo zdravotnictví, 20 Oct 2022)
Referral C-280/22 (Kinderrechtencoalitie Vlaanderen and Liga voor Mensenrechten, 25 Apr 2022)
10 preliminary rulings
of 8 Dec 2022, C-180/21 (Inspektor v Inspektorata kam Visshia sadeben savet)
Article 3(8) and Article 9(1) and (2) of Directive 2016/680 and Article 2(1) and (2) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) must be interpreted as meaning that that regulation is applicable to the processing of personal data by the public prosecutor’s office of a Member State for the purpose of exercising its rights of defence in an action for damages against the State, where, first, it informs the court having jurisdiction of the opening of files relating to a natural person who is a party to that action for the purposes set out in Article 1(1) of Directive 2016/680 and, second, it transmits those files to that court.
of 16 Jul 2020, C-311/18 (Facebook Ireland and Schrems)
Article 2(1) and (2) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), must be interpreted as meaning that that regulation applies to the transfer of personal data for commercial purposes by an economic operator established in a Member State to another economic operator established in a third country, irrespective of whether, at the time of that transfer or thereafter, that data is liable to be processed by the authorities of the third country in question for the purposes of public security, defence and State security.
of 11 Dec 2019, C-708/18 (Asociatia de Proprietari bloc M5A-ScaraA)
Article 6(1)(c) and Article 7(f) of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, read in the light of Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted as not precluding national provisions which authorise the installation of a video surveillance system, such as the system at issue in the main proceedings, installed in the common parts of a residential building, for the purposes of pursuing legitimate interests of ensuring the safety and protection of individuals and property, without the consent of the data subjects, if the processing of personal data carried out by means of the video surveillance system at issue fulfils the conditions laid down in Article 7(f), which it is for the referring court to determine.
Judgment of 14 Feb 2019, C-345/17 (Buivids)
Article 3 of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data must be interpreted as meaning that the recording of a video of police officers in a police station, while a statement is being made, and the publication of that video on a video website, on which users can send, watch and share videos, are matters which come within the scope of that directive.
Judgment of 2 Oct 2018, C-207/16 (Ministerio Fiscal)
Article 15(1) of Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications), as amended by Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009, read in the light of Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted as meaning that the access of public authorities to data for the purpose of identifying the owners of SIM cards activated with a stolen mobile telephone, such as the surnames, forenames and, if need be, addresses of the owners, entails interference with their fundamental rights, enshrined in those articles of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is not sufficiently serious to entail that access being limited, in the area of prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences, to the objective of fighting serious crime.
Judgment of 11 Dec 2014, C-212/13 (Ryneš)
The second indent of Article 3(2) of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data must be interpreted as meaning that the operation of a camera system, as a result of which a video recording of people is stored on a continuous recording device such as a hard disk drive, installed by an individual on his family home for the purposes of protecting the property, health and life of the home owners, but which also monitors a public space, does not amount to the processing of data in the course of a purely personal or household activity, for the purposes of that provision.
Judgment of 16 Dec 2008, C-73/07 (Satakunnan Markkinapörssi and Satamedia)
Article 3(1) of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data is to be interpreted as meaning that an activity in which data on the earned and unearned income and the assets of natural persons are:– collected from documents in the public domain held by the tax authorities and processed for publication,– published alphabetically in printed form by income bracket and municipality in the form of comprehensive lists,– transferred onward on CD-ROM to be used for commercial purposes, and – processed for the purposes of a text-messaging service whereby mobile telephone users can, by sending a text message containing details of an individual’s name and municipality of residence to a given number, receive in reply information concerning the earned and unearned income and assets of that person, must be considered as the ‘processing of personal data’ within the meaning of that provision.
Judgment of 6 Nov 2003, C-101/01 (Bodil Lindqvist)
The act of referring, on an internet page, to various persons and identifying them by name or by other means, for instance by giving their telephone number or information regarding their working conditions and hobbies, constitutes the processing of personal data wholly or partly by automatic means within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data.
Such processing of personal data is not covered by any of the exceptions in Article 3(2) of Directive 95/46.
6. Measures taken by the Member States to ensure the protection of personal data must be consistent both with the provisions of Directive 95/46 and with its objective of maintaining a balance between freedom of movement of personal data and the protection of private life. However, nothing prevents a Member State from extending the scope of the national legislation implementing the provisions of Directive 95/46 to areas not included in the scope thereof provided that no other provision of Community law precludes it.
Judgment of 20 May 2003, C-465/00 (Österreichischer Rundfunk and Others)
Articles 6(1)(c) and 7(c) and (e) of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data do not preclude national legislation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, provided that it is shown that the wide disclosure not merely of the amounts of the annual income above a certain threshold of persons employed by the bodies subject to control by the Rechnungshof but also of the names of the recipients of that income is necessary for and appropriate to the objective of proper management of public funds pursued by the legislature, that being for the national courts to ascertain.
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