Stichting Nijestee (Nijestee foundation) – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2020)

The housing corporation Stichting Nijestee submitted non-anonymized judgments against the Claimant and her deceased father in proceedings against another tenants. According to Nijestee a court order is public unless legal exception apply. The Claimant has brought forward her private information by herself via a public procedure, after which it was included in the judgement. According to Nijestee they had reasonable grounds for using that judgement in another procedure. Nijestee also believes that data processing is permitted if certain conditions allowing it are met, and it has not been demonstrated that this was not the case. Claimant is of the opinion that Nijestee acted unlawfully towards her and her diseased father. She asked the Court to prohibit Nijestee from sharing her personal data contained in a judgement. The Court did not take into consideration the Claimant’s complaint about the processing of her father’s personal data because the Claimant had failed to explain why that processing was unlawful against her. The Court considered that it was possible that the personal data provided by Claimant to a court for the purpose of obtaining a judgment had been made available in a public court order. However, the Claimant’s consent to further dissemination of her personal data cannot be assumed from this. The Court therefore ruled that, in the absence of consent or any other legal basis, the sharing of the Claimant’s personal data by Nijestee was unlawful. Nijestee was also prohibited from sharing Claimant’s personal data with other parties, like co-tenants and other housing corporations.