EU Court Strengthens Personal Data Protection: Journalistic Status Is No Longer a Universal Exception

The Court of the European Union has made an important ruling regarding personal data protection. The judges concluded that selling online access to information about individuals' criminal records in itself does not constitute journalistic activity and therefore does not exempt from compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The case originated from a Swedish citizen who was convicted of a criminal offense in 2011. After serving his sentence, he sought to have information about his conviction removed from a paid online database containing court decisions and other personal information.

The man filed a lawsuit demanding approximately 300,000 Swedish kronor (about 31,000 dollars) in compensation, arguing that the database operator violated the GDPR by refusing to delete his personal data.

Freedom of speech does not override the right to personal data protection

The Court emphasized that EU member states may establish specific exceptions to the GDPR for journalism, art, literature, or science, but they are not allowed to make these exceptions broader than EU legislation permits.

Therefore, national freedom of speech laws cannot deprive individuals of the right to demand protection of their personal data under the GDPR.

Public documents cannot be used without limits

In Sweden, court decisions are public documents. This has led to the emergence of services that collect such documents, create searchable databases, and sell access to them.

The operator of the disputed database claimed to have a special publication permit that guarantees constitutional protection of freedom of speech. In their view, this was sufficient to bypass the usual GDPR protection mechanisms.

However, the EU Court disagreed with this position.

The judges noted that the status of a publication or the existence of a special publication permit does not automatically exempt from GDPR requirements.

What is considered journalism

At the same time, the Court did not state that paid databases can never be journalistic products.

The key criterion is not the method of information dissemination or profit generation, but the purpose of the activity.

The judges believe that to benefit from the journalistic exception under the GDPR, the processing of personal data must be aimed at informing society, and the materials must undergo editorial processing, fact-checking, be prepared according to editorial policy, and comply with journalistic ethical standards.

Simply copying public court decisions and selling access to them may not meet these criteria.

Consequences of the ruling

The publication Courthouse News points out that the EU Court's decision more clearly distinguishes professional journalism from services that profit from selling personal data.

It may also complicate the operations of companies trading such data who rely on journalistic status to avoid liability for GDPR violations.

Now the Swedish court must determine whether the database operator engaged in genuine editorial activity and whether its work meets the journalism criteria defined by the EU Court.

If not, the company will not be able to use the journalistic exception, and individuals whose personal data are published in such a database will have the right to demand deletion and compensation under the GDPR.

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