Ajuntament de Madremanya – Complaint Upheld (Spain, 2026)

On 8 May 2025, Madremanya City Council, acting as controller, published on its notice board two administrative acts concerning a tender procedure for the award of a social housing lease. The documents expressly disclosed the identities of the applicants. On 9 May 2025, the controller replaced the original documents with revised versions in which the applicants’ names and surnames were partially redacted, leaving only their initials visible. However, the redaction was performed manually and did not effectively conceal the information, as it remained possible to infer the length of the names and surnames and to identify some of their letters. In addition to the applicants’ identifying information, the documents disclosed detailed financial data, including the exact annual net income of each household. They also revealed information concerning particularly sensitive personal circumstances, including dependency, gender-based violence and addiction, which had been used to calculate the applicants’ respective scores. No adequate anonymisation or redaction measures had been implemented. In July and November 2025, the DPA requested that the controller provide specific information concerning certain aspects of the processing. The controller’s failure to respond or cooperate hindered the DPA’s ability to exercise its investigative powers. The DPA held that the controller violated Article 5(1)(c) GDPR by publishing personal data that were not necessary for the purpose pursued. The DPA acknowledged that publishing information about the procedure could serve the objective of administrative transparency. However, transparency did not justify disclosing identifying data together with detailed financial information and sensitive personal or family circumstances. The controller had to limit the processing to data that were necessary and proportionate to that objective and consider less intrusive alternatives. The DPA found that the controller’s subsequent redaction did not amount to effective anonymisation. Although most of the characters had been concealed, the applicants could still potentially be reidentified from their initials, the length of their names and surnames and other contextual information. This risk was particularly significant because the municipality had only 277 inhabitants. The controller should therefore have applied complete anonymisation or a pseudonymisation method preventing direct or indirect identification. The DPA also held that the controller violated Article 5(1)(f) GDPR and the duty of confidentiality under [https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2018-16673 Article 5 LOPDGDD]. The published documents disclosed the applicants’ exact household income, household composition and scores linked to circumstances such as dependency, addiction, gender-based violence, single-parent status and age. Although this information was relevant to assessing the applications, it was unnecessary to make it publicly accessible in a form linked to identifiable individuals. The DPA considered that the violations of the data-minimisation and confidentiality principles constituted a medial concurrence of infringements. The failure to anonymise the applicants’ identities was the necessary means through which their sensitive personal and family circumstances were disclosed. Nevertheless, the DPA formally declared separate violations of Articles 5(1)(c) and 5(1)(f) GDPR. Additionally, the DPA held that the controller violated Article 31 GDPR by failing to respond to two information requests. This failure breached the controller’s duty to cooperate with the supervisory authority and obstructed the exercise of the DPA’s investigative powers.