Court case 4 K 1338/21 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2022)
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 German court upheld a decision that publishing a screenshot of a video call featuring a local politician without consent violated privacy rights. The court agreed that the screenshot aimed to defame rather than inform the public. This ruling emphasizes the need for lawful reasons when sharing personal images online.
What happened
A screenshot of a video call featuring a local politician was published online without consent, violating privacy rights.
Who was affected
The local politician featured in the screenshot was affected.
What the authority found
The court ruled that publishing the screenshot without a valid legal basis violated privacy rights, as it was intended to defame rather than inform.
Why this matters
This decision highlights the importance of having a lawful basis for sharing personal images online, especially when the intent is not to inform the public. Website operators should ensure they have clear consent or a valid reason before publishing such content.
GDPR Articles Cited
The controller published a screenshot of an advisory board video call meeting on his webpage, where among others, a local politician, the data subject, could be seen. As a response, the data subject filed a complaint to a DPAWhich exact DPA was concerned was not further specified in the decision. which, subsequently, issued a decision on the matter. In the decision, the DPA stated that the publication of the screenshots and videos violated the personality right of the data subject. Even a possible justification pursuant to Article 6(1)(f) GDPR due to the fact that (1) the data subject is a public figure and (2) it would be in the public interest to know what he is doing, would not prevail over the data subjects interest to not be defamed. Information about the his work is available in the protocol of the meeting, which is available to the public. The general public could get a better picture of the work from the protocol than from a screenshot, which does not provide any context, except the visual appearance of the data subject. Therefore, there was no need to process the data by publishing it in a visual form on a website. The main purpose of the publication of the screenshot was to defame the data subject, not to inform the general public about his work. The decision ordered the controller to erase all personal data and prohibited the future recording of videos or screenshots of the advisory board meetings. Subsequently, the controller filed a lawsuit against the DPA's decision at the Administrative Court in Bremen. In its decision, the court held that the decision from the DPA was legally correct and dismissed the case. The publication of the screenshots and videos on a private webpage, which is mostly used by the data controller to express his views and not to inform the general public about current affairs, constituted a processing of personal data in the sense of Article 4(2) GDPR. Therefore, the data controller needed a lawful ground for processing in
Outcome
Court Ruling
A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.
Related Cases (0)
No other cases found for Court case 4 K 1338/21 in DE
This is the only recorded case for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Court case 4 K 1338/21 - Germany (2022). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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