Court case 7 CE 20.1822 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2020)
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A German court ruled that a journalist's request for detailed COVID-19 case data in small communities could risk identifying individuals. The court emphasized the need to balance public interest with privacy concerns. This decision shows the challenges of sharing health data while respecting privacy.
What happened
A journalist requested detailed COVID-19 case data for small communities, which the court found could risk identifying individuals.
Who was affected
Residents of small communities in Bavaria where detailed COVID-19 case data was requested.
What the authority found
The court held that providing detailed COVID-19 case data for small communities could lead to identifying individuals, thus breaching privacy protections.
Why this matters
This ruling illustrates the difficulty of balancing transparency and privacy, especially in small communities. It highlights the need for careful consideration when sharing health data to ensure individuals' privacy is protected.
GDPR Articles Cited
National Law Articles
As a freelance editor of the daily newspaper "Main-Post", the applicant asserts a right to information under press law by way of interim relief. The defendant challenges that decision by lodging an appeal. He submits that the cumulative total of COVID-19 cases in the individual administrative district communities since the outbreak of the infection in Germany, as requested by the applicant, does not justify a far-reaching public interest in information, nor does it allow a conclusion to be drawn on health risks which could justify a particular urgency in providing information. The decision does not provide any information on the public interest in information to be weighed up. A journalist of the "MainPost" requested the cumulative total of COVID 19 cases in county municipalities of county N. in Bavaria since the outbreak of the pandemic in Germany. The district of N. consisted of 38 municipalities, some of which had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. The defendant argues that due to the small-scale and village character alone, it can be expected that a reconstruction of personal references is easily possible. He makes a reference to the statements of the Bavarian State Commissioner for Data Protection in his Current Information 31 "Statistical data on COVID-19 diseases accurate to the community? (as of 1.7.2020), that only in municipalities with at least 10,000 inhabitants do not generally raise any data protection-related objections to the disclosure of daily total numbers of diseases since the beginning of the SARS Cov-2 pandemic. Article 11 BayPrG is not applicable. This rule applies to situations of further processing of data by press companies. However, it cannot be inferred from the statements made by the Bavarian Commissioner for Data Protection that the information requested by the applicant, relating to those municipalities in the district of N. in which fewer than 10 000 people live, makes it possible to draw conclusions about persons specifically affecte
Outcome
Court Ruling
A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.
Related Cases (0)
No other cases found for Court case 7 CE 20.1822 in DE
This is the only recorded case for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Court case 7 CE 20.1822 - Germany (2020). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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