Court case ECLI:DE:LAGNI:2021:1022.16SA761.20.00 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2021)
General GDPR enforcement action
This case relates to broader data protection obligations, not specifically to cookie or consent banner compliance. It is not included in cookie statistics or the Risk Calculator.
A German court ruled on a case where an employee of a car manufacturer claimed his personal data was mishandled during an internal investigation. The court found no violations of GDPR, but the case highlights the importance of transparency in handling employee data requests. This decision reminds companies to carefully manage data access requests, especially during investigations.
What happened
An employee claimed his personal data was mishandled during a car manufacturer's internal investigation into diesel engine issues.
Who was affected
The employee whose personal data was requested and partially provided during the investigation.
What the authority found
The court found no GDPR violations in the handling of the employee's data access requests and subsequent data processing.
Why this matters
This case underscores the need for companies to be transparent and thorough when responding to data access requests, especially in complex investigations. It serves as a reminder to ensure that data handling practices comply with transparency requirements under GDPR.
GDPR Articles Cited
The defendant is an auto-mobile manufacturer, the claimant was employed by the defendant and responsible for the development of diesel engines. After anomalies in connection with the diesel engines became known, the defendant began to start internal enquiries to investigate the diesel gate. In the course of the investigations, the defendant repeatedly asked the claimant to give consent for the transfer of personal data, private correspondence and personnel files to investigative authorities in the USA. However, the claimant only partially consented to the transfers. In this context, the claimant made an initial data subject access request to the defendant in 2016 for information about the data to be transferred to the USA and the results of the investigations. Ultimately, the claimant was given a warning in connection with the investigations and the defendant terminated the employment relationship. At the termination hearing, the claimant made a further data subject access request against the defendant in August/September 2018. The defendant responded to this second request and sent copies of 938 documents which originated from the claimant's account and business equipment. The documents provided were partially anonymised and redacted. In December 2018, the claimant then requested the defendant to provide more information. At trial, the claimant claimed damages from the defendant under Article 82 GDPR for unlawful processing of the claimant's personal data. The claimant claimed that the processing was unlawful due to a lack of transparency, the unlawful transfer of personal data to US authorities and the improper handling of the data subject access request. According to the claimant, the defendant had not provided all relevant personal data when answering the data subject access request. The data submitted was unusable, as some of it had been redacted on 96% of its pages or consisted only of publicly accessible documents such as press releases. The information had
Outcome
Court Ruling
A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.
Related Cases (0)
No other cases found for Court case ECLI:DE:LAGNI:2021:1022.16SA761.20.00 in DE
This is the only recorded case for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Court case ECLI:DE:LAGNI:2021:1022.16SA761.20.00 - Germany (2021). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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