Datenschutzbehörde – CJEU Judgment (Austria, 2025)

On 17 February 2020, the data subject lodged a complaint with the Austrian DPA. He complained that the controller had not responded to his access request under Article 15 GDPR for access within one month. On 22 April 2020, the DPA made the decision to refuse to act on this complaint, arguing that it was “excessive” under Article 57(4) GDPR. The DPA observed in particular that, over a period of about 20 months, the data subject had sent it 77 complaints arguing that various controllers failed to respond within one month to his requests for access or erasure. Also, the DPA highlighted the fact that the data subject regularly contacted the DPA by telephone in order to report additional facts and to make additional requests. The data subject brought an action before the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht – BVwG). On 22 December 2022, the BVwG upheld the data subject’s action. It held that, in order for requests to be "excessive” under Article 57(4) GDPR, it is not enough that these requests had been made repeatedly and frequently, but it is also needed that they had been manifestly vexatious or abusive. The DPA appealed this judgement before the Supreme Administrative Court (Verwaltunsgerichtshof – VwGH). This court decided to stay the proceedings and refer the following questions to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling: # Must the concept of “requests” in Article 57(4) GDPR be interpreted as meaning that it also covers “complaints” under Article 77(1) GDPR? # Must Article 57(4) GDPR be interpreted as meaning that, for requests to be “excessive”, it is sufficient that a data subject has merely addressed a certain number of requests to a DPA within a certain period of time, irrespective of whether the facts are different and/or whether the requests (complaints) concern different controllers, or is an abusive intention on the part of the data subject required in addition to the frequent repetition of requests (complaints)? # Must Article 57(4) GDPR be in