CJEU case C-118/22 Direktor na Glavna direktsia ‘Natsionalna politsia’ pri MVR – Sofia – CJEU Judgment (European Union, 2024)

Following an investigation, an entry was made into the police records about a data subject. The data subject was convicted and given a one year suspended sentence. After serving the sentence the data subject was legally rehabilitated according to national law. Due to this, the data subject requested the erasure of the entry concerning him in the police records. The police (the controller) refused on the grounds that legal rehabilitation is not one of the grounds for erasure in the police records under national law. The administrative court of Sofia in Bulgaria upheld the police's decision. Therefore, the data subject brought an appeal before the Supreme Administrative Court, Bulgaria. The data subject argued that Article 5,13 and 14 LED (the roughly equivalent GDPR articles would be Article 5(1)(e), 13 and 15 GDPR) do not permit the police to indefinitely process his data. This is de facto the data subject's current case, as without a ground for removal, they will never be able to obtain erasure from the police register. The Supreme Administrative Court, Bulgaria referred the following question to the CJEU: 1) Does Article 5 and 13(2)(b) and 13(3) LED allow national law which leads to a virtually unrestricted right for authorities to process personal data and does this allow for the elimination of the data subject's right to restricted processing or erasure? The CJEU held that the LED precluded national legislation and does not allow the police to process the data indiscriminately until the data subject's death. First, the CJEU broadened the question that was being referred to it by reformulating it (as is allowed under C-742/19 Ministrtsvo za obramo). It included into the scope of the question special categories of data, as the national legislation on storage also includes biometric and genetic data. It also broadened the relevant LED Articles in question to include 4(1)(c) and (e), 10, 16(2) and (3). The question was therefore, whether these articles preclude