Court case W211 2221963-1 – Court Ruling (Austria, 2020)
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.
An Austrian real estate company sent letters to a property owner without informing them how their data was used, violating GDPR rules. The court found the company didn't properly inform the person about data collected from public records. This case highlights the importance of transparency in data processing.
What happened
A real estate company sent letters to a property owner without informing them about the use of their data from public records.
Who was affected
A property owner whose contact details were obtained from the land register by the real estate company.
What the authority found
The court found the company failed to inform the property owner about the use of their data, violating GDPR's transparency requirements.
Why this matters
This case emphasizes that companies must inform individuals when using their data, even if it's from public sources. Real estate businesses should ensure they comply with transparency obligations under GDPR.
GDPR Articles Cited
National Law Articles
A natural person filed a complaint under the Data Protection Act (Datenschutzgesetz, DSG), in which it was summarised that the Company (appellant in this case - a real estate trustee and developer) had already sent letters to this natural person on several occasions, to his/her private address, in which the Company had expressed interest in acquiring the other party's property. Given the repeated sending of such letters, it had to be assumed that the Company had been processing the personal data of the involved party permanently for a long time. Therefore, on XXXX 2018, the natural person involved had asked the Company for information on the processing of personal data under Article 15 GDPR and, as it believed that any data processing that had been carried out was unlawful, he/she had requested that the data be deleted according to Article 17 GDPR. The complainant had not reacted to this request. The Company claimed in the proceedings initiated by the DPA that unfortunately, due to internal misconduct, the letter had remained unanswered. The opinion was accompanied by a letter from the Company addressed to the other party on the same day, in which the request for information under Article 15 GDPR was complied with and the other party was informed that its personal data had been deleted. It must be added that the complainant searched the land register for the property of the co-participating party and in this way obtained the contact details of the party. Subsequently, the complainant used the data obtained from the land register (extract from the land register) to contact the party three times by post with a view to a possible purchase of the said property. The contact details of the co-interested party were not used for any other purpose. However, the Company had not informed the party concerned about the personal data not collected directly from the party, under Article 14 of the GDPR. The data protection authority informally discontinued the proceedings regardi
Outcome
Court Ruling
A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.
Related Cases (0)
No other cases found for Court case W211 2221963-1 in AT
This is the only recorded case for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Court case W211 2221963-1 - Austria (2020). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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