Court case 3 L 763/22.NW – Court Ruling (Germany, 2022)

Court Ruling
DPA VGNeustadtanderWeins27 October 2022Germany
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 German court decided that the 2022 Census data collection by the Federal Statistical Office did not break any data protection laws. The court found that gathering this data was necessary for public interest tasks. This ruling reassures public institutions about their data collection practices for essential statistics.

What happened

The German Federal Statistical Office collected data for the 2022 Census, which was challenged but upheld by the court as lawful.

Who was affected

Individuals whose property information was collected during the 2022 Census in Germany.

What the authority found

The court ruled that the data collection for the Census 2022 was lawful and served a public interest purpose under GDPR.

Why this matters

This decision supports the idea that data collection for public statistics is lawful if it serves a public interest. It highlights the importance of transparency and compliance with data protection laws for government agencies.

GDPR Articles Cited

Art. 4 GDPR
Art. 46 GDPR
Art. 6(1)(e) GDPR
Art. 89 GDPR

National Law Articles

§ 1 BStatG
ZensG 2022
Decision AuthorityVG Neustadt an der Weinstraße
Full Legal Summary
Detailed

In 2022, the German Federal Statistical Office, the controller, ran the 2022 census. As part of the census 2022, it also conducted a building and housing census (GWZ). In this vein, the controller requested information about the property of the data subjects in June 2022, which the latter did not comply with. The data is collected via an online form on the official Census 2022 homepage or via a paper form that is thereupon digitalized by a third party. In July 2022, the data subjects requested information about the data processing of the controller via Article 15 GDPR. Among other things, the data subjects wanted to know if the personal data would be processed in a third country. The data subjects opposed the data collection, claiming that the collected personal data was not sufficiently protected and that the incorporation of Cloudflare was not in line with the Schrems II judgment of the CJEU. In its response, the controller clarified that all collected data is exclusively processed by servers of the Federal Statistical Office. The integration of the company Cloudflare within the official Census 2022 homepage concerns only the generally accessible information and its functionality. In September 2022, the data subject filed a suit, claiming that, among other things, that the collected personal data was not sufficiently protected. Especially the incorporation of Cloudflare into the official Census 2022 was not in line with the Schrems II judgment by the CJEU. Collection of data The court held that the request by the defendant to provide information concerning the building and housing census did not violate the provisions of data protection law and was compatible with the provisions of the GDPR. The collection of data within the framework of the Census 2022 served the performance of a task in the public interest. The Census 2022 is a federal statistic and therefore a prerequisite for political decisions, to continuously collect, process, present and analyse da

Outcome

Court Ruling

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

Related Cases (0)

No other cases found for Court case 3 L 763/22.NW in DE

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

Details

Ruling Date

27 October 2022

Authority

DPA VGNeustadtanderWeins

About this data

Data: GDPRhub (noyb.eu)
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Cite as: Cookie Fines. Court case 3 L 763/22.NW - Germany (2022). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu

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