Court case ECLI:NL:RBZWB:2023:7274 – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2023)

The data subject owned a mobile home, which was permanently pitched at a campsite. Between 31 March 2021 and 4 November 2021, the Municipality of Oisterwijk's tax authority charged the data subject for municipal taxes of sewerage and commuter tax. The data subject objected to the taxes through the Municipality's objection procedure. The data subject founded his objection on GDPR grounds and made the following claims: (i) he made an Article 15 GDPR access request, (ii) claimed that the taxes were invalid as they were calculated through automated means, and invoked his right not to be subject to automated decision-making under Article 22 GDPR, and (iii) made an erasure request under Article 17 GDPR. On 22 March 2022, the Municipality responded to the data subject's objection and provided him with a copy of his data held by them, in the context of the calculation of the commuter and sewerage tax charges. The Municipality rejected the data subject's Articles 17 and 22 GDPR requests. The data subject objected to the Municipality's response and appealed it to the Court of East Brabant. The Court held that the Municipality was entitled to reject the data subject's erasure request (Article 17 GDPR) and their Article 22 GDPR claim. In relation to Article 17 GDPR, the Court held that the Municipality had a legitimate aim in retaining the data and assessing whether the data subject could be rightly classified as a taxable person. Moreover, the Municipality was legally obligated to retain the data under national administrative law (Article 17(3)(b) GDPR). On the issue of Article 22 GDPR, the Court held that the Municipality had adequately demonstrated that all automated tax calculations were subject to sufficient human intervention, and thus did not fall under the scope of Article 22 GDPR. Consequently, they were entitled to reject the data subject's Article 22 GDPR claim.