Court case III CZP 78/19 – Court Ruling (Poland, 2020)

The parties were involved in social initiatives aimed at supporting or questioning the need for certain investments in the vicinity of the housing estate where they live. The defendants accused the claimant that, as a result of her interventions in the housing estate, the city carried out no investments. The defendants publicly criticised the claimant's attitude and they also expressed their opinions in social media. The applicant claimed that the defendants had thereby infringed her personal rights. The Regional Court held that there was no infringement, as the defendants exercised their right to freedom of expression. In the Regional Court's opinion the defendants cannot be held responsible for the form of statements made by other people, including Internet users. The claimant has appealed against the judgment. The claimant complained that the court omitted her request for evidence to oblige the domain registrar and the Internet access service provider to disclose the names and addresses of subscribers to the service using pseudonyms (nicknames), who published entries about the claimant on an Internet forum. The Court of Appeal identified the subscriber of the domain and obtained from him information about e-mail addresses to the accounts with logins indicated by the claimant and lists of posts written from those addresses. Next, it called the Internet provider for the established IP addresses to indicate the subscribers of the Internet access service. The Internet provider refused to provide information, citing telecommunication secrecy. Additionally, it indicated that the deadline within which it is obliged to store, among others, the data requested by the Court, has already passed. The Court of Appeal has addressed the Supreme Court with a legal issue. Is an entity providing Internet access services, i.e. an entity bound by telecommunication secrecy, entitled to refuse to provide personal data of the subscriber of this service in a case of infringement of personal rights, if it is the content presented via the Internet that may constitute the basis for this infringement and in this case is the basis for providing this data at the request of a civil court? The Supreme Court held that a court is entitled to demand from an entity bound by telecommunications secrecy information that allows to verify the claimant's claim that an act infringing her personal rights was committed by the defendant in the case.