Lindqvist
Referring to people on an internet page by name or other identifying details is processing of personal data, which is not covered by the exemption for purely personal or household activity.
Facts
Mrs Lindqvist worked as a catechist in a parish of the Church of Sweden. On her own computer, she set up internet pages to help parishioners preparing for confirmation, and included information about herself and some of her colleagues, including their names, jobs, hobbies and telephone numbers, and a statement that one colleague had injured her foot and was working half time on medical grounds. She had not told her colleagues or obtained their consent. She was prosecuted under the Swedish data protection law, and the Swedish court referred questions to the Court of Justice.
Legal principle
The Court of Justice held that the act of referring, on an internet page, to various persons and identifying them by name or other means constituted processing of personal data wholly or partly by automatic means, and that the reference to the injured foot was data concerning health. The exception for processing in the course of a purely personal or household activity did not apply, because the information was made accessible to an indefinite number of people. Loading the information onto a page stored with a hosting provider in the European Union did not amount to a transfer of data to a third country, even though the page could be accessed from anywhere in the world.
Related cases on personal data, controllers and the scope of data protection
- Breyer v Bundesrepublik Deutschland (2016) Case C-582/14
- Durant v Financial Services Authority [2003] EWCA Civ 1746
- Fashion ID GmbH & Co KG v Verbraucherzentrale NRW eV (2019) Case C-40/17
- Nowak v Data Protection Commissioner (2017) Case C-434/16
- Ryneš v Úřad pro ochranu osobních údajů (2014) Case C-212/13
- Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz Schleswig-Holstein v Wirtschaftsakademie Schleswig-Holstein GmbH (2018) Case C-210/16
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