Meinhard A – Complaint Upheld (Austria, 2026)

The controller, an Austrian registered association, operates a therapy centre for psychosomatic illnesses. The data subject was a patient of the controller. On 28 July 2025, the data subject sent an access request by email under Article 15 GDPR, asking for full information on all personal data processed about him including specific categories of data, processing purposes, recipients, storage periods, data origin, any automated decision-making, a copy of his data in electronic format and what data had been processed by two named individuals (a doctor and a body therapist working for the controller) and whether either had disclosed his data to third parties. The controller's chairperson replied by email on 12 August 2025, attaching a PDF of the data collected from the data subject and a list of medications, noting the data originated from a named doctor and that there was no planned retention period. The reply stated that data recorded by the body therapist existed only in handwritten form and had not been electronically processed and offered to send the data subject a copy by post or email. The reply did not include information on the purposes of processing, categories of data, recipients or categories of recipients, or the criteria used to determine retention periods. The data subject filed a complaint with the Austrian DPA, alleging that the access provided was incomplete. Despite being invited to comment twice by the DPA, the controller did not respond at any point during the proceedings, although a delivery receipt confirmed it had received the correspondence. First, addressing the controller's failure to participate in the proceedings, the DPA held that although it is required to investigate matters on its own initiative, a party's persistent failure to cooperate despite repeated invitations may properly be taken into account in the DPA's free assessment of evidence, rather than obliging the DPA to conduct further investigations of its own accord. On this basi