Court case 201905709/1/A3 – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2020)

In a domestic violence and child abuse case, the Minister for Legal Protection granted the father’s request to obtain a copy of the correspondence between the mother and the Council for the Protection of Childhood. Since there were several data subjects, the Minister asked the mother, in accordance with Article 4 GDPR, whether she objected to the inspection and surrender of the data and weighed up the interests involved. The mother objected, but the Minister for Legal Protection decided however that the father had the right to inspect or obtain a copy of the files, as the information contained in the files were already largely known to the father. The District Court of The Hague dismissed the mother’s appeal against that decision, considering that the father, having authority over the children, was entitled under Article 15(1) GDPR to inspect the files. In the opinion of the Court, it did not appear that the provision of the documents to the father would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of the mother. The mother’s appeal to the Council of State was declared well-founded. According to the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State, • Article 15(1) GDPR only gives a data subject the right to obtain information about the personal data concerning him/her, and therefore does not provide a basis for providing personal data to third parties • Article 15(4) and recital 63 GDPR indicate that the right to obtain a copy must be without prejudice to the rights and freedoms of others. The files covered by the request include documents in which only personal data of the mother are included as well as documents containing both personal data of the mother and the father. As far as his own personal data are concerned, the father can be regarded as a data subject as referred to in Article 15(1) GDPR. But with regard to the mother’s personal data, the mother is the “data subject”. The personal data of the mother cannot therefore be provided to the fathe