Regional Court of Wiener Neustadt (Landesgericht Wiener Neustadt) (controller) – Dismissed (Austria, 2023)

On 03 May 2021, the data subject sent a request to the controller for the erasure of their financial asset information. The controller did not respond to their erasure request. On 17 July 2021, the data subject filed a complaint with the DPA (DSB) regarding the violation of their right to erasure under Article 17 GDPR. Over the course of the complaint proceedings, the controller refused the requested deletion. The DPA held that the European Union interprets the concept of data 'processing operations of courts acting in their judicial capacity', as defined in Article 55(3) GDPR, more broadly than under Austrian law. Referring to the decision of the [https://infocuria.curia.europa.eu/tabs/document/C/2020/C-0245-20-00000000RP-01-P-01/ARRET/256461-EN-1-html CJEU in 'Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens' (C-245/20) EU:C:2022:216], the supervision of processing operations carried out by courts 'acting in their judicial capacity' could directly or indirectly affect judicial independence or influence their decisions. As judicial activities must be exercised autonomously and free from any external influence, they are therefore excluded from that authority's competence. Individuals must have no reasonable doubt about the independence and impartiality of the justice system. As judges may have access to the information provided by the Austrian Justice System, processing that data may influence their performance of judicial tasks and the decision-making process. Therefore, the DPA dismissed the complaint, as it has no supervisory competence over the data processing operations of courts 'acting in their judicial capacity' pursuant to Article 55(3) GDPR.