Data protection authority of Saarland (defendant) – Court Ruling (Germany, 2021)

Following the complaint of two petitioners claiming that the plaintiff had contacted them for direct marketing purposes, even though they had not consented to the processing of their personal data to this effect, the supervisory authority for data protection in Saarland, the defendant, ordered a limitation of the processing and an erasure of the unlawfully processed personal data of the petitioners by the plaintiff pursuant to Article 58(2)(f) and Article 58(2)(g) GDPR. The plaintiff had not been able to prove that the consent of the petitioners had been obtained in accordance with the requirements of Article 7(1) GDPR. The argument presented by the company, alleging that the petitioners' consent had been collected at the time of their participation in a lottery and confirmed via e-mail as part of a so called "double opt-in process", were not considered sufficient by the supervisory authority. The authority pointed out that the plaintiff should have been able to prove that the consent actually originated from the person contacted for direct marketing purposes, which had not been the case in the present matter. Furthermore, the authority underlined that the plaintiff could not justify a legitimate interest pursuant to Article 6(1)(f) GDPR, which would allow them to process the petitioners' data without their consent, the petitioners not having any business relationship with the plaintiff and therefore no reasonable expectation to be contacted by the plaintiff's company. In this context, contacting the petitioners for direct marketing purposes without their prior consent even qualified as unreasonable harassment under § 7(2)(2) of the national competition law (UWG). The plaintiff appealed the decision of the supervisory authority before the administrative court of Saarland (VG Saarlouis), arguing amongst other things that the orders could only be considered contradictory because of the reference to requirements from data protection as well as competition laws which