Court case 5 L 623/21.F – Court Ruling (Germany, 2021)

The applicant operates a sales outlet for the display and sale of barbecues, barbecue accessories and products relating to barbecuing. In line with the special regulations associated with the coronavirus pandemic, restrictions had been imposed on him in his shop in relation to the need to use certain hygiene measures. The applicant considered that he remained in a worse situation than garden, biulding and DYI markets to which customers would have barrier-free acces. The applicant's activity was subject to the restriction that the customer had to make a prior appointment in the shop and provide personal data for this purpose: name, address and telephone number. The trader was obliged to record personal data for the purposes of tracing infections. The outlet was obliged to store this personal data for a period of one month after the appointment of the individual customer, secure it against access by third parties, for the competent authorities and to transmit the data upon request of these authorities, as well as to delete or destroy it immediately after the expiry of the above period in a secure manner and in accordance with data protection legislation. A specific provision of the regulation issued in connection with the coronavirus pandemic has excluded the application of Article 13 GDPR, Article 15 GDPR Article 18 GDPR and Article 20 GDPR concerning the obligation to inform and the right of access to personal data. Customers were to be informed of these restrictions. Therefore, the applicant applied to the Administrative Court Frankfurt am Main for a temporary injunction to regulate the operation of its sales outlet so that it would not be subject to any special restrictions. Is the contested provision in Paragraph 3a(1), second sentence, No 22 of the CoKoBeV lawful? The Court found that the exemption to provide information if and to the extent that the data subject already has the information (Article 13 (4) GDPR), it does not provide for the power of a publi