Court case 4 BV 21.2328 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2022)

The plaintiff was the owner of a plot of land in the association area of the defendant, which operated a public water supply facility for the area. The building located on this property was used by the plaintiff and their employees exclusively as an architectural office. After the defendant had announced that the existing water meters would be replaced and converted to electronic water meters with the option of radio reading, the plaintiff objected by letter. The defendant rejected this objection and argued that the right of objection pursuant to [https://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/BayGO-24 Article 24(4) sentence 5 of the Bavarian Law on Municipalities] did not apply to the plaintiff's property because a commercial enterprise was located there. Therefore, no personal data could be read out. Eventually, the water meter was installed using coercive measures and the plaintiff initiated court proceedings. In its judgement of 29 July 2021, the Administrative Court of Munich ordered the defendant, upon complaint by the plaintiff, to switch off the radio module of the electronic water meter in the plaintiff's property. The court ruled that the right to object was exercised properly and should have been granted. However, the defendant appealed this position by referring to of [https://dejure.org/gesetze/GG/13.html Article 13(1) of the German Basic Law] on protection of personal data. Accordingly, the right to object only existed if the data concerned the occupants of houses. In the case of rooms used for commercial or professional purposes, it was not possible to draw conclusions about personal data because of the associated contacts with business partners and visits by customers. The court in appeal had to consider, among others, whether information from the electronic water meter could be considered as personal data pursuant to Article 4(1) GDPR. The court first noted that the the primary reason for the right to object to the installation of a water mete