- Enforcing jurisdiction
- Austria · Geography does not establish applicable law.
- Confirmed applicable legislation
- Privacy topics
Austrian Data Protection Authority – Court Ruling (Austria, 2024)
Privacy enforcement record
This record is classified outside cookie consent. Subject classification does not confirm an applicable law. It is not included in cookie statistics or the Risk Calculator.
An Austrian court ruled that a credit ranking agency could continue processing a person's data related to their past debts, despite the individual's request for erasure. This decision is significant because it shows how courts balance the interests of companies against those of individuals. Users should be aware that their past financial behavior can impact their creditworthiness.
What happened
A court ruled that a credit ranking agency could keep processing a person's data about their debt settlement.
Who was affected
The individual who had settled their debts and requested data erasure was affected by this ruling.
What the authority found
The court determined that the agency's processing of the individual's data was necessary for assessing creditworthiness, thus upholding the legality of the processing.
Why this matters
This case illustrates the complexities of data rights and the balance between personal privacy and business interests. Individuals should understand that their financial history can have lasting effects on their credit evaluations.
View original scraped data
Original imported citations before automated processing; the processing history does not establish independent verification.
Source checks
Linked-source text retrieved.
Automated check recorded — 18 March 2026.
Processing notes: articles corrected, national law identified, authority corrected.
Retrieved text may be a secondary summary or an announcement. These automated statuses do not establish that the original decision was read or that the record received an independent legal review. How we check sources
In 2010, debt settlement proceedings were issued against the data subject. The data subject settled the payments of their debts in March 2018. After settling the debts, the civil court ordered to make the personal data of the data subject unavailable to the public in the public insolvency register. The controller, a credit ranking agency, continued to process and store personal data of the data subject that related to his debt settlement procedure that the controller obtained from the public insolvency register. The purpose of the procesing was to assess the creditworthiness of the data subject and his company. The data subject was the company's sole shareholder. The data subject requested the erasure of his personal data on 4 May 2018, after fulfilling his debt payment plan. The controller did not reply. On 24 October 2018, the data subject lodged a complaint at the Austrian DPA against the controller for the infringement of the right to erasure under Article 17 GDPR. The controller informed the DPA by letter the same day that it would not comply with this request. The DPA dismissed the data protection complaint. The decision does not give detail on why the complaint was dismissed. The data subject appealed this decision at the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht, BVwG). The court dismissed the appeal. The court found that the controller’s processing the personal data in question was necessary, as the purpose of the processing was for making a forecast about the future payment behaviour of the data subject. The court found that the interests of the controller and its third parties outweighed the interests of the data subject The court concluded that the processing of data on historical insolvencies and payment defaults of the data subject was necessary and lawful and that the objections raised by the data subject could not justify his request for erasure. The data subject appealed to the decision before the Austrian Supreme Administrative Co
Outcome
Court Ruling
A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.
Related Cases (1)
Other cases involving Austrian Data Protection Authority in AT
Details
Ruling Date
1 February 2024
Authority
DPA BVwG
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Austrian Data Protection Authority - Austria (2024). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
Last updated: