unknown data subject (complainant before the DSB) – Court Ruling (Austria, 2022)

Court Ruling
Datenschutzbehörde28 July 2022Austria
final
Court Ruling

General GDPR enforcement action

This case relates to broader data protection obligations, not specifically to cookie or consent banner compliance. It is not included in cookie statistics or the Risk Calculator.

In Austria, a court ruled that a chartered accountant must provide a person access to information used in a report about alimony claims. This decision is important because it reinforces the right of individuals to know how their personal data is being used, especially in sensitive situations like divorce. It sets a precedent for similar cases where access to personal data is denied.

What happened

A court upheld a decision requiring a chartered accountant to comply with a person's request for access to data used in an alimony report.

Who was affected

A person involved in divorce proceedings who requested access to their personal data used in an accountant's report.

What the authority found

The court found that the accountant failed to comply with the person's request for access to their data, violating their rights under data protection rules.

Why this matters

This ruling highlights the importance of transparency in data processing, especially in legal matters. It reminds service providers that individuals have the right to access their personal information.

GDPR Articles Cited

AI-verified

Art. 12(GDPR)
Art. 4(1) GDPR
Art. 15(4) GDPR
View original scraped data
Art. 4(1) GDPR
Art. 12(GDPR)
Art. 15(4) GDPR

Original data from scraper before AI verification against source document.

National Law Articles

AI-identified

§ 80 WTBG 2017 (Wirtschaftstreuhandberufsgesetz 2017)
Decision AuthorityBVwG
Reviewed AuthorityDSB (Austria)
Source verified 20 March 2026
articles corrected
national law identified
authority corrected
Full Legal Summary
Detailed

The data subject and his wife were in divorce proceedings. The wife mandated a chartered accountant (controller) to calculate her (future) alimony claims against the data subject. According to the data subject, the controller's report on the alimony claims was partially based on data that was not publicly available, especially data on the financial situation of a private foundation that was one of the data subject's sources of income. The data subject accused the controller of having obtained this data unlawfully. In July 2018, the data subject requested access under Article 15 GDPR from the controller, especially asking for information on the source of the data and a data copy. As the controller did not reply to the access request, the data subject lodged a complaint with the Austrian Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde - DSB) in August 2018. Before the DSB, the controller argued that the report on the alimony claims was based on documents provided by the data subjects wife. The data subject contested to have ever handed any information concerning the private foundation to his wife. The controller did not provide access to the data subject in the course of the procedure before the DSB. In April 2019, the DSB issued a decision and held that the controller had failed to comply with the data subject's access request and ordered the controller to comply or to inform the data subject of the reasons for not doing so under Article 12(4) GDPR. The controller appealed the decision, arguing that it could not comply with the data subject's access request because that would violate its statutory professional secrecy obligation under § 80 WTBG 2017 (Wirtschaftstreuhandberufsgesetz 2017) in connection with Article 15(4) GDPR, as the data subject's wife had not waived this secrecy obligation. The BVwG dismissed the appeal and upheld the DSB's decision (with some minor edits). It held that the professional secrecy obligation under § 80 WTBG 2017 does not provide a gen

Outcome

Court Ruling

A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.

Details

Ruling Date

28 July 2022

Authority

Datenschutzbehörde

About this data

Data: GDPRhub (noyb.eu)
Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
AI-verified and classified

Cite as: Cookie Fines. unknown data subject (complainant before the DSB) - Austria (2022). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu

Report Inaccuracy

Last updated: