ABN AMRO Bank N.V. – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2020)

The appellant has a complicated financial history with several debts and a record of payment delays, including a mortgage at Achmea bank and a private loan from ABN AMRO bank. Because of these debts he was registered in the Central Credit Information System (CKI) of the Credit Registration Office (BKR). Over the years, the appellant has tried to improve his financial situation and succeeded in some areas. He wanted to take an additional loan to support his business, lease a working car and move to a bigger house. The CKI registration prevented all of this from happening, which led to a (rejected) right to erasure request and a lawsuit before the Court of First Instance of Zeeland-West-Brabant which he lost. The appeal is based on essentially two claims: 1) banks cannot use compliance with a legal obligation as a lawful basis for processing when it comes to credit register maintenance (a position seemingly shared by the Dutch DPA) and 2) in his particular case, such registration was disproportionate and thus was not compliant with the principles of necessity and proportionality. The banks are of the opinion that compliance with a legal obligation is the correct legal basis, that the appellant's financial situation is far from perfect and that the CKI record is therefore justified and necessary to protect the financial system and the appellant himself. The Court did not agree with a rather narrow interpretation of the scope of compliance with a legal obligation as a legal basis in this case. According to the Court, not every individual personal data processing operation requires specific legislation tailored to its purpose, a legislation can serve as a legal basis for several data processing operations. According the the Court, the appellant also failed to demonstrate exactly how the credit registration breached the principles of necessity and proportionality. Although his financial situation has seemingly improved, the Court ruled that the interests of ABN AMR