unknown (claimant) – Court Ruling (Austria, 2021)

On 15.01.2019 the claimant sent and access request under Article 15 GDPR to the defendant and requested i.a. information on concrete recipients of their personal data under Article 15(1)(c) GDPR. The defendant replied by referencing to its data protection notice which of course only listed categories of potential data recipients but did not name any concrete recipients. The claimant filed a lawsuit with the Regional Court for Civil Matters Vienna (Landesgericht für Zivilrechtssachen Wien - LGfZRS Wien), requesting that the defendant had to name concrete recipients. In the course of the court procedure, the defendant stated that the claimant's data have been disclosed to the defendant's customers, which include "companies conducting advertising in the mail-order business and stationary trade, IT companies, address publishers and associations, NGOs or political parties". Again, the defendant did not name any concrete recipients. Nevertheless, the LGfZRS Wien dismissed the case. After an unsuccessful appeal to the Higher Regional Court Vienna (Oberlandesgericht Wien - OLG Wien), the claimant flied an appeal with the Austrian Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof - OGH). The OGH stayed the procedure and referred to following question to the CJEU under Article 267 TFEU: Does the right to information on recipients under Article 15(1)(c) GDPR necessarily also extend to concrete recipients of personal data if the data has already been disclosed? The OGH also provided a summary of existing legal opinions on the question of naming concrete recipients vs. stating only categories of recipients and argued that Article 15(1)(c) GDPR should be interpreted in light of the purpose of that provision. In the view of the OGH, the right to access is also a tool for the data subject to effectively exercise its rights under Article 16 et seqq. GDPR. Therefore, the controller should not have a choice to state only categories of recipients because that would hinder data subjects to exercise