Court case 1 B 72/21 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2021)

The data subjects notified the competent local authority (controller) about three public assemblies they were organising on the 4th, 11th and 18th of December 2021 to protest against the COVID-19 policies. On December 14th a press representative sent an email to the authority asking for the names of the data subjects. The authority, however, refused to provide the information on the grounds of the data subject's right to privacy. As a consequence, the press representative filed for interim relief in court on the same day to learn the names and full addresses of the data subjects. The Administrative Court of Osnabrück (Verwaltungsgericht Osnabrück - VG Osnabrück) granted interim relief regarding the names and the residential areas, which the data subjects live in, but not regarding their full addresses. The court held that the plaintiff has a right to information according to [https://www.nds-voris.de/jportal/?quelle=jlink&query=PresseG+ND+%C2%A7+4&psml=bsvorisprod.psml&max=true § 4 NPresseG] (Press Law of the state of Lower Saxony) and that the GDPR does not preclude this right. § 4(1) NPresseG obliges authorities to provide representatives of the press with the information which they need to fulfill their task. § 4(2)(no. 3) NPresseG lays down that access can be denied by the authority if it would infringe a private interest which deserves protection. The court concluded that the interest of the public to information outweighs the interest of the data subjects to privacy, including the their right to informational self-determination, because the topic of COVID-19 is of paramount public interest right now and the data subjects have placed themselves in the public eye by organising the assemblies. The court further reasoned that the GDPR does not preclude the plaintiff's right to information because § 4 NPresseG is to be seen as a legal basis for the processing under Article 6(3),(1)(c) or (e) GDPR and because the GDPR and the processing for journalistic purposes