Court case AN 14 K 22.00468 – 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 cyclist in Germany took photos of parking violations and sent them to the police, but was reprimanded for not having a legal basis to process this data. The court overturned this reprimand, stating the cyclist did not breach GDPR rules. This case clarifies that individuals reporting offenses may not always need explicit consent to process data.
What happened
A cyclist took photos of parking violations and shared them with the police without a legal basis for processing the data.
Who was affected
Vehicle owners whose license plates were photographed by the cyclist were affected.
What the authority found
The Administrative Court of Ansbach ruled that the cyclist did not violate GDPR, overturning the reprimand from the data protection authority.
Why this matters
This ruling indicates that individuals reporting legal violations might not need explicit consent for data processing, which could impact how citizen reporting is handled in the future.
GDPR Articles Cited
The controller is a cyclist who took pictures of parking offences and, together with a short description, sent it to the police authority in charge to report the offence. The case at hand concerned photographs taken in June 2020 of various vehicles that showed the parking situation and the vehicles' license plates. In June 2021, the competent DPA issued a reprimand against the controller in accordance with Article 58(2)(b) GDPR. The DPA argued that taking and redirecting pictures of the parking offences constitutes processing of personal data and that the controller did not fulfil their informational duties pursuant to Articles 13(1)(d) and 14(2)(b) GDPR. The authority claimed that there was no legitimate legal basis under Article 6(1) GDPR for the processing, as the controller neither obtained a consent of the vehicle owners nor had a legitimate interest that would justify the processing. The controller was requested to pay an administrative fee of 100 euros. The controller filed a complaint against the DPA's decision in a written statement at the Administrative Court of Ansbach. The Administrative Court Ansbach overturned the DPA's decision. It held that the reprimand issued by the DPA is unlawful because the claimant did not violate any provisions of the GDPR, which is a condition for a reprimand pursuant to Article 58(2)(b) GDPR. Material scope of the GDPR According to the court, the GDPR applies in the case at hand since taking pictures of vehicles and forward them to the police constitutes the processing of personal data in accordance with Article 2(1) GDPR and Article 4(1) GDPR. A license plate is information that allows the identification of a natural person, despite the fact that the provision of additional information from authorities is necessary to identify the data subject. Furthermore, the household exemption laid down in Article 2(2) GDPR is not applicable since the processing of personal data is leaving the private sphere. The pictures taken w
Outcome
Court Ruling
A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.
Related Cases (0)
No other cases found for Court case AN 14 K 22.00468 in DE
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Details
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Court case AN 14 K 22.00468 - Germany (2022). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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