Court case II SA/Wa 2227/19 – Court Ruling (Poland, 2020)

The data subject's complaint concerned irregularities in the process of processing of his personal data by the company. They consisted in making his personal data available to unauthorised persons. It was alleged that the company's employees - in the presence of third parties located in the MP's office (public place) - read, using the applicant's personal data, the content of the statement on termination of the employment contract. The applicant indicated that - after refusing to accept the termination - representatives of the company left an unsecured letter containing the termination in the presence of persons in the MP's office; therefore, the applicant requested that all actions be taken to rectify the violations indicated. President of the Personal Data Protection Office has decided that the provision of personal data to the applicant in the above mentioned way was done in violation of the provisions of personal data protection Article 5 (1) (c) and (f) of the GDPR. Both parties filed a complaint against the President of the Personal Data Protection Office decision with the Provincial Administrative Court for Warsaw. The court considered whether the Polish DPA correctly applied Article 5(1)(c) and (f) of the GDPR and whether the GDPR provisions would be applied at all in the given situation. The Provincial Administrative Court for Warsaw revoked the decision of the President of the Personal Data Protection Office. In its reasoning, the Court states that Article 2 (1) of the GDPR shall apply only "to the processing of personal data wholly or partly by automatic means and to the processing, other than by automatic means, of personal data which form part of a filing system or are intended to form part of a filing system". The Court stressed that under Article 4(6) of the GDPR, a data filing system is a structured set of personal data accessible according to specific criteria, whether that set is centralised, decentralised or dispersed on a functional or geo