Court case AWB- 20_5521 – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2021)

Controller is the municipality of Zundert. Data subject requested access to the personal data that was being processed by the municipality pursuant to Article 15 GDPR. In particular, they requested to provide them with a list of all data carriers, whether available in paper or other form, and by additionally providing them with copies or extracts of those data carriers. The controller provided the data subject with an overview of the personal data relating to them processed during the period from 3 October 2017. However, the controller refused to provide copies and extracts of documents. Data subject was not content with the summary of their processed personal data, and objected to the decision. This objection, however, was declared unfounded by the controller. Hence, the data subject appealed to the District Court and argued, inter alia, that providing merely a summary of the processed data was an insufficient reply to his request. The controller argued that data subject should have given a copy of the underlying files on which the summary was based. The Court rejected the appeal. First, it considered that, although it became clear (also from data subjects' explanation at the hearing) that the data subject used the access request to gain access to documents, which the municipality had refused to disclose on the grounds of the Government Information (Public Access) Act (Wob), the municipality did not take this data subjects' intention in the decision. Second, the Court held, referring to the judgement of 3 March 2021 of the Council of State (RvS), that Article 15(3) GDPR is not intended to ensure the data subject access to administrative documents containing personal data. Although an administrative body can decide to provide a copy of these documents, it is under no obligation to do so. The Court affirmed that an the municipality has sufficed by providing an overview.