State Secretary of Justice and Security – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2021)

On 9 July 2019, the data subject made a request to the Ministry of Justice and Security (the controller) to access his personal data pursuant to Article 15 GDPR. The controller decided to reject this request on 15 October 2019. During the hearing on 26 November 2019, the controller deemed the data subject's request to be formulated too generally. In response to this, the data subject specified it by requesting access to the personal data processed during the exchange of documents by the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service with the civil registry of the municipality and the Court of Appeal of Arnhem-Leeuwarden. The data subject specifically wanted to know which personal data had been processed in connection with the procedure before the Court of Appeal concerning an alleged sham paternity recognition of his daughter, and by which departments these data had been processed. In the contested decision from 19 December 2019, the controller considered the data subject’s objection to the decision as unfounded since his request did not concern personal data that had been processed by the Repatriation and Departure Service. Moreover, the data subject had initially failed to respond sufficiently to the request of the controller to provide additional information regarding his request to access. Consequently, there is no right to penalty payment due to the failing of a timely decision as the controller had the right to reject the data subject's application as unfounded. The data subject appealed this decision. First, the data subject was interested in the detailed documents and appendices in which his personal data had been processed. In the District Court’s opinion, the data subject had no right to this under Article 15 GDPR. This Article does not provide the right to physical or digital copies in which the personal data has been processed. This is further specified in Article 15(3) GDPR as it states that the data subject has the right to a copy of the personal da