Public Service of Wallonia - Department of Nature and Forests – Complaint Upheld (Belgium, 2026)
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.
The Belgian data protection authority upheld a complaint regarding the sharing of personal data by the Public Service of Wallonia. This is important because it reinforces the need for transparency when personal information is shared with other organizations. Businesses should be clear about how they handle and share personal data.
What happened
A complaint was upheld against the Public Service of Wallonia for sharing personal data without clear communication.
Who was affected
An individual whose personal data was shared with the Walloon Economic, Social and Environmental Council was affected.
What the authority found
The authority ruled that the transfer of personal data was authorized by law, thus dismissing the complaint.
Why this matters
This ruling emphasizes that organizations must be transparent about data sharing practices. Companies should ensure they communicate clearly about how they handle personal data.
GDPR Articles Cited
View original scraped data
Original data from scraper before AI verification against source document.
National Law Articles
Entities Involved
An individual filed a request with the Walloon Public Service - Department of Nature and Forests (‘the Department’, a controller), for an exemption from bird protection measures in regards to hunting on behalf of him and other fellow hunters including the data subject. The Department asked the Walloon Economic, Social and Environmental Council (‘the Council’, a second controller) to issue an opinion. Subsequently, the Council published the opinion on its website. The opinion contained some personal data of the data subject and of the other hunters. In response, the data subject requested the Department to communicate the legal basis for the transfer of his personal data to the Council, asked the Council about the legal basis for the processing of his personal data, in particular for their publication on the internet, and requested the erasure of his personal data from the notice published on the website. In addition, the data subject filed a complaint with the Belgian DPA (APD). In its response, the Department informed the data subject that it transmitted his personal data to the Council in accordance with a legal obligation from Article 44(4) of the Law on Nature Conservation (1973) and Decrees of the Walloon Government from 2003. Responding to the data subject’s requests, the Council refused to comply with the erasure request citing Article 17(3)(a) GDPR for its legal obligation under Article 33(4) of the Law on Nature Conservation and Article 17(3)(b) GDPR for its legitimate interest of processing the personal data which serves a public interest objective. The transfer of personal data Analysing the national legal provisions invoked by the Department, the DPA held that the transfer of the data subject’s personal data to the Council was authorised by law, complying with Article 6(1) GDPR. Therefore, it dismissed the data subject’s complaint regarding the unlawful transfer of his personal data. The Council’s processing of the personal data However,
Outcome
Complaint Upheld
A data subject complaint that was upheld by the DPA.
Related Enforcement Actions (0)
No other enforcement actions found for Public Service of Wallonia - Department of Nature and Forests in BE
This is the only recorded action for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Public Service of Wallonia - Department of Nature and Forests - Belgium (2026). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
Last updated: