Court case 7 CE 20.1822 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2020)

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