Court case W274 2224363-1 – Court Ruling (Austria, 2020)

The complainant is an officer of the court guard. The co-participant was in prison and had contact with the complainant there. After his release from prison, the co-participant made public statements in the media and mentioned, inter alia, the complainant's details. In particular, in a Facebook post he mentioned the name and function of the complainant in connection with his trade union affiliation, which revealed the political views of the complainant. It is not known how the co-participant had information about the complainant's trade union affiliation. The complainant lodged a complaint with the supervisory authority. The co-participant requested that it be dismissed, pointing out that his statements related to journalistic activities, which fall under the exceptions for the protection of personal data. The DPA concluded that it was not possible to establish a link between the Facebook post and the co-participant's journalistic activity, but the authority did not grant protection to the complainant's rights. It pointed out that the interests of the co-participant stood above the interests of the complainant, since the Facebook post concerned prison misconduct and the co-participant had acted within the framework of freedom of expression. In addition, the complainant's personal data had been published on a publicly accessible website, so the co-participant had not gained access to them unlawfully. The applicant appealed to the court. The Court upheld the appeal and held that the content published by the co-participant on Facebook infringed the complainant's right to protection of personal data. The court ordered that the content be removed from Facebook.