Court case 23 O 10931/20 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2021)

Court Ruling
DPA LGMnchen2 September 2021Germany
final
Court Ruling

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 court in Munich dismissed a claim for damages over an alleged data breach on a social network. The user claimed they lost control of their data, but the court found no evidence of a breach. This case shows the importance of proving actual harm when seeking damages for data protection issues.

What happened

The Munich court dismissed a user's claim for damages over an alleged data breach on a social network.

Who was affected

A user of a social network who claimed their data was mishandled and sought damages.

What the authority found

The court found no evidence of a data breach or mishandling of the user's information and rejected the claim for damages.

Why this matters

This ruling emphasizes that claims for data protection violations must be backed by clear evidence of harm. It serves as a reminder for users and businesses about the importance of maintaining and proving data security.

GDPR Articles Cited

Art. 15 GDPR
Art. 82 GDPR
Decision AuthorityLG München
Full Legal Summary
Detailed

The controller operates a social network and an online platform. The data subject created a customer account there using his law firm e-mail address. In July 2020, the data subject demanded damages from the controller because of an alleged data protection incident from January 2019 on the website to his e-mail address. The controller replied, telling the data subject that it did not own the website. Therefore, it informed the data subject how and via which URL he could view and download a complete copy of the data stored about him within his user account. The data subject claimed that the URL links sent by the controller were useless because they showed “page not found” when called. The data subject sought damages for an alleged data breach. He claimed that the defendant did not answer his request for information. The data subject had initially claimed that his data was stolen from his account as part of a hack in February 2019. In 2021, the data subject submitted that a data protection incident regarding his e-mail address was no longer at stake, but rather his account on the platform. He alleged that he lost control of his data as a result of the breach of his right to information and the data leak made possible by system errors. According to him, this amounted to an immaterial damage to be valued at least € 4,500 due to the seriousness of the data protection violation. Before the court, the data subject requested to order the controller to pay him € 6,650 plus interest. The controller submitted that it fulfilled its information obligations under the GDPR. It argued that its information system was customary in the market. Furthermore, the data subject no longer responded to the notification of the links. In addition, the controller denied a data protection incident concerning the plaintiff's e-mail address. The Regional Court of Munich rejected the data subject's claim. It held that the mere allegation that damage has occurred due to the loss of control over dat

Outcome

Court Ruling

A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.

Related Cases (0)

No other cases found for Court case 23 O 10931/20 in DE

This is the only recorded case for this entity in this jurisdiction.

Details

Ruling Date

2 September 2021

Authority

DPA LGMnchen

About this data

Data: GDPRhub (noyb.eu)
Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
AI-verified and classified

Cite as: Cookie Fines. Court case 23 O 10931/20 - Germany (2021). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu

Report Inaccuracy

Last updated: