ADHEOS – Court Ruling (France, 2021)

In February 2020 the French minister of the interior enacted the [https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/id/JORFTEXT000041615919/ Decree No. 2020-151 of 20 February 2020 authorising the automated processing of personal data known as "mobile note-taking application"] (Décret n° 2020-151 du 20 février 2020 portant autorisation d'un traitement automatisé de données à caractère personnel dénommé «application mobile de prise de notes» (GendNotes)). The app should be used on the occasion of preventive actions, investigations or interventions necessary for the exercise of judicial or administrative police missions. Among the data that can be collected is information relating to alleged racial or ethnic origin, political, philosophical or religious opinions, trade union membership, health or sexual activities or orientation. A group of human rights organisations filed a complaint with the French Constitutional Court. Is the "GendNotes" App of the French national police force (Gendarmerie nationale) unlawfully processing special category personal data? The French Highest Administrative Court held that the decree infringed Article 4 of the [https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/id/JORFTEXT000000886460/ Law of 6 January 1978], implementing GDPR in France, the Council of Europe Convention No. 108 for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data and Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as it excessively infringed upon the right to respect for private life and the correlative right to protection of personal data, without providing appropriate safeguards for their protection in terms of the purpose of the processing and the nature of the data collected, as well as excessive data retention period, data sharing and data security. The Court discussed whether the decree violated Article 4 GDPR, (a), (b), (c), and (e) and Article 9 GDPR. According to the Court, the processing of data did not comply with the princi