Court case III OSK 1522/21 – Court Ruling (Poland, 2022)

The plaintiff applied to the District Police Chief (the defendant) for access to public information, namely footage of a video recording taken during vehicle and traffic control carried out by the police on 17 February 2017. By decision of 29 December 2017, the defendant refused to provide access to the entire recording, including the requested car registration numbers available on the footage. The decision was substantiated by the obligation to protect the personal data of individuals visible on the recording. Moreover, given that the plaintiff requested access to the data in the form of digital files - the obliged authority was not in a position to ensure adequate and irreversible anonymisation of the data. Upon receipt of the request for public information, the obliged authority verified it accordingly, then notified the applicant in writing, without issuing a separate administrative decision. The plaintiff objected to this decision first internally at the defendant authority, then in court. The court of first instance determined that the information requested by the plaintiff constituted, in principle, public information. In that judgment, the court also stated that such a broadly defined request covering, inter alia, material from the video recorder mounted in the car belonging to the district police - may include data infringing the privacy of natural persons. The court ruled that the defendant was right in refusing the request based on protection of personal data. Subsequently, the plaintiff filed a cassation appeal requesting that the judgment be set aside in its entirety. The Supreme Administrative Court recalled the first instance ruling. It stated that the video recording contained images of the persons controlled, as well as the registration numbers of the vehicles subjected to roadside checks, which would make it possible to identify those persons. This would consequently violate [https://arslege.pl/zasada-ochrony-zycia-prywatnego/k15/a5278/ Article 47 of the Polish Constitution], which imposes an obligation on public authorities to protect the privacy of the individual against unjustified interference. Consequently, the Court held that effective protection of privacy of the persons being inspected, including the vehicles they drive, requires security that completely prevents their identification. This also applies to vehicle registration numbers, knowledge of which may lead to the identification of the persons being inspected. Accordingly, pursuant to [https://lexlege.pl/ustawa-o-dostepie-do-informacji-publicznej/art-5/ Article 5(2) of the Act on Access to Public Information], the right to public information is subject to restriction on grounds of privacy of an individual or professional secrecy. However, the court of first instance erroneously considered that the content of the registration plate constituted personal data. The Court recalled the opinion expressed in the judgment of the [https://sip.lex.pl/orzeczenia-i-pisma-urzedowe/orzeczenia-sadow/iii-osk-1466-21-wniosek-o-udostepnienie-nagrania-z-523274097 Supreme Administrative Court of 14 May 2021, ref. no. III OSK 1466/21], which stated that "the registration number of a car is not subject to protection stemming from the right to privacy, as it identifies the car and not the person (...)." Pursuant to Article 4(1) GDPR, personal data refers to information about natural persons, not vehicles. According to the Court, data relating to a vehicle did not constitute information referred to in Article 4(1) GDPR if the identification of the car owner could only be made through access to relevant registers or catalogues. At the same time, the images of persons in the recording constituted personal data and should be protected under the right to privacy and data protection. Hence, if the footage could not be irreversibly anonymised, the defendant was correct in refusing the request. In conclusion, the Court held that the appealed judgment, despite its partially erroneous justification, corresponded to the law. Therefore, the appeal was dismissed.