Court case 6Ob148/25w – Court Ruling (Austria, 2026)

The controller runs an address publishing business as well as a credit information agency. As part of its credit assessment activity, it (i) checks that individuals whose credit score is requested exist with data like their name and address and (ii) issues credit scores based on data provided by debt collection agencies and on statistics, as payment default data is available on approximately 10% of Austrians. The controller bought personal data about a data subject (name, address, date of birth) from a company (B) that operates in the address publishing and direct marketing industry. The contract provided that this data may only be used to check whether the individual with that name under that address exists. While the data subject’s data was initially collected by company B for the purpose of direct marketing, the controller used the personal data in question exclusively to check the individual with that name under that address exists. At a customer's request, the controller issued a credit assessment of the data subject. The assessment was based on the name, gender and address of the data subject because there was no available data on possible payment defaults of the data subject. The data subject brought an injunction against the controller. The main discussions regarded (i) a violation of the purpose limitation principle: the data was initially collected for direct marketing purposes and later used for credit assessment; (ii) the calculation of the score, which relied solely on statistical data and not on data actually concerning the payment history of the data subject. The court of first instance and second instance rejected the injunction. The court of first instance held that the controller processed the data according to the contract with company B. Moreover, the processing for the original purpose was compatible with the further processing. The court of second instance however held that the further processing was not compatible with the original purpose but that the controller could rely on national law as legal basis. As far as the method of credit assessment was concerned, both courts held that the processing fell under Article 6(1)(f) GDPR because the processing was necessary for operating a credit information agency. The data subject appealed the decision. The court partly upheld the decision of the court of second instance. Pre-emptive injunctions Firstly, the court referred to the case law of the CJEU that provides for the possibility of pre-emptive injunctions under national law. The scope of the subject matter of the injunction under Austrian national law is reduced to the specific violating actions the data subject claims. Therefore, as far as the data subject requests the controller to desist from unlawfully processing their personal data in general, the injunction is inadmissible because the data subject failed to name a specific violation. Purpose limitation The court considered that processing data to check if the individual exists in the context of credit assessments must be regarded as processing data for the purpose of credit assessments. This is true even where the data was not used for calculating the credit score itself. In this case, the controller processed the personal data for a different purpose than the marketing purpose that justified the initial collection. The further processing had significant consequences for the data subject and was not subject to appropriate safeguards pursuant to Article 6(4)(e) GDPR, in violation of Article 6(4) GDPR. Lawfulness of credit scoring calculation in absence of payment default data The court held that the assessment of a credit score on the basis of statistical data, and the address and and name of the data subject in the absence of data on possible payment defaults was not per se unlawful under Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. As there is available data on payment defaults on only 10% of Austrians, credit assessments of the majority of the population would otherwise not be possible. Such a calculation was also in line with data subjects expectations. The court found a violation of the principle of purpose limitation but held that the credit assessment in the absence of payment data was not per se unlawful.