Court case III OSK 4763/21 – Court Ruling (Poland, 2022)

The proceedings started with a complaint made to the Polish DPA (UODO) in which a data subject claimed that the processing of their personal data by a non-standardised securitisation fund (fund) was not justified and lacked legal basis on the grounds that the debt being collected by the fund was non-existent. The plaintiff therefore requested that all of their personal data be removed from the fund’s database in accordance with Article 17(1) GDPR. The personal data obtained by the fund included: name, surname, date of birth, gender, national identification number, correspondence addresses, telephone number, e-mail address, as well as information on the claim broken down to financial components, including principal amount, interest and bank account number dedicated to debt repayment, the date of the contract and the date of termination of the contract. The UODO decided that the processing of personal data by the fund was lawful, since the fund acquired the debt from an original creditor in the performance of a contract under Article 28 GDPR. The UODO stated that as a debtor, the data subject must consider that their right to privacy may be limited in connection with the recovery of debts. The UODO emphasized, however, that it had not examined the factual elements regarding the existence of the debt or its amount, which are issues that should be determined by civil courts. The claimant, which disputed the existence of the debt, specifically complained about receiving importunate telephone calls by the fund. With regards to these allegations, the UODO explained that this issue must be considered in the context of established practices applied by debt collection agencies. The UODO, therefore, decided that the fund was not obligated to grant the data subject's erasure request, since it had a legitimate interest and legal basis for processing the data. The data subject appealed this decision to the Voivodship Administrative Court in Warsaw, on the basis that the UODO inco