Court case 6 SLa 116/26 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2026)
General GDPR enforcement action
This case relates to broader data protection obligations, not specifically to cookie or consent banner compliance. It is not included in cookie statistics or the Risk Calculator.
A court ruled that a job applicant's claim for damages was dismissed because he had shared his personal data publicly on Facebook. The court decided he didn't lose control over his data since it was already accessible to many people. This case highlights the importance of understanding how sharing information online can affect privacy rights.
What happened
The court dismissed a job applicant's claim for damages after he argued his personal data was used without consent.
Who was affected
The job applicant, who applied for a position at a human resources consulting company and claimed discrimination.
What the authority found
The court found that the applicant had voluntarily made his personal data available on Facebook, so he had not suffered a significant loss of control over it.
Why this matters
This ruling shows that sharing personal information publicly can limit privacy claims. Small business owners should ensure they understand how public data sharing impacts user privacy rights.
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Automated check recorded — 16 September 2026.
Processing notes: articles corrected, authority corrected.
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The data subject had applied for a secretary position in a human resources consulting company (the controller) in January 2025. He later filed a lawsuit claiming he had been discriminated against in the recruitment process on the basis of his gender and his disability. In October 2025, the data subject amended his lawsuit to include a claim for non-material damages of at least €1,000 under Article 82 GDPR. He claimed to have lost the control of his personal data as the controller had submitted a screenshot of the data subject’s Facebook profile to the court as an attachment to its answer to the lawsuit without first informing him of the collection and processing of his data in accordance with Article 14 GDPR. The court of first instance issued a default judgment where it dismissed the damages claim on 14 October 2025, as the data subject failed to appear before the court. This outcome was upheld in a final decision in January 2026: the court of first instance held that the data subject had voluntarily made the personal data at issue available for viewing by an unlimited number of people on his Facebook profile. Therefore, he had not suffered a significant loss of control over his personal data. The data subject appealed this decision to the Cologne Higher Labour Court in February 2026. The higher labour court dismissed the data subject’s claim for damages under Article 82 GDPR. First, the court held that the controller had not fully complied with its obligations under Article 14 GDPR – it had not provided the data subject the contact information of its data protection officer, specified the categories of personal data being processed, or explicitly identified the legitimate interests pursued. While the court found that there had been a violation of Article 14 GDPR, it also pointed out that a GDPR infringement alone could not give rise to a claim for damages. According to the court, the data subject had not suffered non-pecuniary damage in the present case. He
Outcome
Court Ruling
A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.
Related Cases (0)
No other cases found for Court case 6 SLa 116/26 in DE
This is the only recorded case for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Court case 6 SLa 116/26 - Germany (2026). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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