Court case W176 2245370-1 – Court Ruling (Austria, 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.
An Austrian court ruled that a doctor review site wrongly published a doctor's request to delete a negative review. The court found that the doctor had a right to expect privacy for their deletion request. This decision highlights the balance between free expression and individual privacy rights on online platforms.
What happened
A doctor review site published a doctor's request to delete a negative review, which the court found was not justified.
Who was affected
A doctor who requested the deletion of a negative review on an evaluation platform.
What the authority found
The Austrian court agreed with the Data Protection Authority that the doctor had a right to privacy for their deletion request, which outweighed the platform's interest in publishing it.
Why this matters
This ruling emphasizes the importance of respecting privacy expectations, even on platforms that value free expression. Website operators should carefully consider user privacy when handling deletion requests.
GDPR Articles Cited
National Law Articles
The controller operates a doctor search and evaluation platform. The data subject is a doctor for skin and venous diseases. In December 2019, the data subject used the reporting function of the platform to request the deletion of a user's review pursuant to Article 17(1) GDPR. The controller did not remove the disputed review from the platform, but instead published the controller's request for deletion on the platform, arguing that there is a legitimate interest for the publication of this information under Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. The data subject objected to the publication and lodged a complaint with the Austrian Data Protection Authority (DSB). The Austrian Data Protection Authority (DSB) disagreed with the controller's view. It stated that, generally, such evaluation platforms and the associated processing of personal data are covered by the right to freedom of expression in accordance with Article 10 ECHR and Article 11 CFR. It further reasoned that, usually, the added social value created by the evaluation platform or the interests of the broader public outweigh the interests of the data subject, so that the publication of comments by users of this platform can in principle be based on Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. The DSB, however, concluded that, since the data subject used the report function and not the comment function of the page, the use of the data was intended exclusively for the purpose of reporting and, therefore, the data subject did not reasonably have to expect the publication of the data. Consequently, the DSB found that the legitimate interests of the controller or the platform users (i.e. the patients) did not outweigh the legitimate interests of the controller and, therefore, the controller violated the data subject's right to deletion. The controller appealed this decision. The Federal Administrative Court of Austria (Bundesverwaltungsgericht - BVwG) agreed with the position of the DSB. In particular, it confirmed the balancing of interests perfo
Outcome
Court Ruling
A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.
Related Cases (0)
No other cases found for Court case W176 2245370-1 in AT
This is the only recorded case for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Court case W176 2245370-1 - Austria (2021). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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