Municipality of Utrechtse Heuvelrug – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2020)

The claimant is a citizen who made an Article 17 GDPR request to the Municipal Executive of the municipality of Utrechtse Heuvelrug to delete his personal data processed on a forum used by different municipalities to cooperate and in emails to other administrative bodies. He also requested €3,000 in damages under Article 82 GDPR. The Executive rejected the request for deletion because the claimant's personal data had already been removed from the forum and because no personal data of his had been processed by e-mail. He also rejected the claim for damages on the grounds that the application was insufficiently substantiated. The claimant disagreed, arguing his data was still on a back-up of the forum. The defendant responded by stating the forum was responsible for data operations on the platform, and that the citizen should make his erasure request. First, the District Court of Midden-Nederland assessed whether the Municipal Executive should considered a controller in this case. It considered a previous case by the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State (ECLI:NL:RVS:2019:181) and held that because municipal officials placed messages about the claimant containing his personal data on the forum, their actions must be attributed to the municipal executive for which they work and he must be regarded as a controller. However, it found he complied with his obligations after receiving the erasure request. Indeed, he contacted the forum which deleted the claimant's personal data from its platform. Second, it evaluated whether the claim for damages should be upheld. It started by citing a previous court decision which confirmed the mention of the claimant's name on the forum was lawful in accordance with Article 6(1)(e) GDPR. It found that such processing was necessary and proportionate to the invasion of the plaintiff's privacy to prevent fraudulent claims for penalty payments from different municipalities. Thus, the court rejected the claim for