Article 23 GDPR

← Article 23 - Restrictions →
Chapter 1: General provisions Article 1: Subject-matter and objectives Article 2: Material scope Article 3: Territorial scope Article 4: Definitions Chapter 2: Principles Article 5: Principles relating to processing of personal data Article 6: Lawfulness of processing Article 7: Conditions for consent Article 8: Conditions applicable to child’s consent in relation to information society services Article 9: Processing of special categories of personal data Article 10: Processing of personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences Article 11: Processing which does not require identification Chapter 3: Rights of the data subject Article 12: Transparent information, communication and modalities for the exercise of the rights of the data subject Article 13: Information to be provided where personal data are collected from the data subject Article 14: Information to be provided where personal data have not been obtained from the data subject Article 15: Right of access by the data subject Article 16: Right to rectification Article 17: Right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’) Article 18: Right to restriction of processing Article 19: Notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing Article 20: Right to data portability Article 21: Right to object Article 22: Automated individual decision-making, including profiling Article 23: Restrictions Chapter 4: Controller and processor Article 24: Responsibility of the controller Article 25: Data protection by design and by default Article 26: Joint controllers Article 27: Representatives of controllers or processors not established in the Union Article 28: Processor Article 29: Processing under the authority of the controller or processor Article 30: Records of processing activities Article 31: Cooperation with the supervisory authority Article 32: Security of processing Article 33: Notification of a personal data breach to the supervisory authority Article 34: Communication of a personal data breach to the data subject Article 35: Data protection impact assessment Article 36: Prior consultation Article 37: Designation of the data protection officer Article 38: Position of the data protection officer Article 39: Tasks of the data protection officer Article 40: Codes of conduct Article 41: Monitoring of approved codes of conduct Article 42: Certification Article 43: Certification bodies Chapter 5: Transfers of personal data Article 44: General principle for transfers Article 45: Transfers on the basis of an adequacy decision Article 46: Transfers subject to appropriate safeguards Article 47: Binding corporate rules Article 48: Transfers or disclosures not authorised by Union law Article 49: Derogations for specific situations Article 50: International cooperation for the protection of personal data Chapter 6: Supervisory authorities Article 51: Supervisory authority Article 52: Independence Article 53: General conditions for the members of the supervisory authority Article 54: Rules on the establishment of the supervisory authority Article 55: Competence Article 56: Competence of the lead supervisory authority Article 57: Tasks Article 58: Powers Article 59: Activity reports Chapter 7: Cooperation and consistency Article 60: Cooperation between the lead supervisory authority and the other supervisory authorities concerned Article 61: Mutual assistance Article 62: Joint operations of supervisory authorities Article 63: Consistency mechanism Article 64: Opinion of the Board Article 65: Dispute resolution by the Board Article 66: Urgency procedure Article 67: Exchange of information Article 68: European Data Protection Board Article 69: Independence Article 70: Tasks of the Board Article 71: Reports Article 72: Procedure Article 73: Chair Article 74: Tasks of the Chair Article 75: Secretariat Article 76: Confidentiality Chapter 8: Remedies, liability and penalties Article 77: Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority Article 78: Right to an effective judicial remedy against a supervisory authority Article 79: Right to an effective judicial remedy against a controller or processor Article 80: Representation of data subjects Article 81: Suspension of proceedings Article 82: Right to compensation and liability Article 83: General conditions for imposing administrative fines Article 84: Penalties Chapter 9: Specific processing situations Article 85: Processing and freedom of expression and information Article 86: Processing and public access to official documents Article 87: Processing of the national identification number Article 88: Processing in the context of employment Article 89: Safeguards and derogations relating to processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes Article 90: Obligations of secrecy Article 91: Existing data protection rules of churches and religious associations Chapter 10: Delegated and implementing acts Article 92: Exercise of the delegation Article 93: Committee procedure Chapter 11: Final provisions Article 94: Repeal of Directive 95: /46: /EC Article 95: Relationship with Directive 20: 02: /58: /EC Article 96: Relationship with previously concluded Agreements Article 97: Commission reports Article 98: Review of other Union legal acts on data protection Article 99: Entry into force and application

Legal Text

Article 23 - Restrictions

1. Union or Member State law to which the data controller or processor is subject may restrict by way of a legislative measure the scope of the obligations and rights provided for in Articles 12 to 22 and Article 34, as well as Article 5 in so far as its provisions correspond to the rights and obligations provided for in Articles 12 to 22, when such a restriction respects the essence of the fundamental rights and freedoms and is a necessary and proportionate measure in a democratic society to safeguard:

(a) national security;

(b) defence;

(c) public security;

(d) the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, including the safeguarding against and the prevention of threats to public security;

(e) other important objectives of general public interest of the Union or of a Member State, in particular an important economic or financial interest of the Union or of a Member State, including monetary, budgetary and taxation a matters, public health and social security;

(f) the protection of judicial independence and judicial proceedings;

(g) the prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of breaches of ethics for regulated professions;

(h) a monitoring, inspection or regulatory function connected, even occasionally, to the exercise of official authority in the cases referred to in points (a) to (e) and (g);

(i) the protection of the data subject or the rights and freedoms of others;

(j) the enforcement of civil law claims.

2. In particular, any legislative measure referred to in paragraph 1 shall contain specific provisions at least, where relevant, as to:

(a) the purposes of the processing or categories of processing;

(b) the categories of personal data;

(c) the scope of the restrictions introduced;

(d) the safeguards to prevent abuse or unlawful access or transfer;

(e) the specification of the controller or categories of controllers;

(f) the storage periods and the applicable safeguards taking into account the nature, scope and purposes of the processing or categories of processing;

(g) the risks to the rights and freedoms of data subjects; and

(h) the right of data subjects to be informed about the restriction, unless that may be prejudicial to the purpose of the restriction.

Relevant Recitals

Recital 73

Restrictions concerning specific principles and the rights of information, access to and rectification or erasure of personal data, the right to data portability, the right to object, decisions based on profiling, as well as the communication of a personal data breach to a data subject and certain related obligations of the controllers may be imposed by Union or Member State law, as far as necessary and proportionate in a democratic society to safeguard public security, including the protection of human life especially in response to natural or manmade disasters, the prevention, investigation and prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, including the safeguarding against and the prevention of threats to public security, or of breaches of ethics for regulated professions, other important objectives of general public interest of the Union or of a Member State, in particular an important economic or financial interest of the Union or of a Member State, the keeping of public registers kept for reasons of general public interest, further processing of archived personal data to provide specific information related to the political behaviour under former totalitarian state regimes or the protection of the data subject or the rights and freedoms of others, including social protection, public health and humanitarian purposes. Those restrictions should be in accordance with the requirements set out in the Charter and in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Commentary

Overview

Data protection principles, data subjects’ rights and controllers’ obligations are not absolute ideas. They can be respectively limited, restricted or lightened by way of Union or Member State law. In order to be lawful, however, the limitation must fulfil the requirements set out in ArticleArticle 23 GDPR. In particular, the measure must (1) respect the essence of the right to data protection, (2) be foreseeable in its effects, (3) reflect a qualified public interest, (4) address only those rights and obligations which can be limited according to the GDPR, (5) necessary, (6) proportionate and (7) provide for specific safeguards and information as requested by ArticleArticle 23(2) GDPR.

Essence

In terms of general EU law, any restriction to a fundamental right cannot violate the restricted right’s very essence. For this reason, the EDPB Guidelines 10/2020 on restrictions under Article 23 GDPR (hereafter: “Guidelines”) reject the idea of extensive restrictive measures that, for instance, exclude all data subjects’ rights about all processing operations carried out by a controller.[1]

Foreseeability

The legislative measures seeking to restrict the scope of data processing principles, data subject rights or controller’s obligations must be foreseeable for the data subject. In this respect, the restrictive measure must be sufficiently clear and give citizens an adequate indication of the circumstances that must be met for controllers to invoke it lawfully.[2]

Qualified public interest

For the measure to be admissible, it must pursue one or more specific public interests mentioned in Article 23(2) GDPR. Such a list is exhaustive meaning that restrictions cannot be placed under any other conditions than those mentioned in paragraph 2.[3]

Limited scope

Under Article 23(1), the legislative measure can only interfere with the “obligations and rights provided for in Articles 12 to 22 and Article 34, as well as [the principles in] Article 5”. The right which can be restricted are those to transparent information (Article 12 GDPR), information (Articles 13 and 14 GDPR), access (Article 15 GDPR), rectification (Article16 GDPR), erasure (Article 17 GDPR), restriction of processing (Article 18 GDPR), notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing (Article 19 GDPR), data portability (Article 20 GDPR), object (Article 21 GDPR),  refusal of automated individual decision making (Article 22 GDPR). This means that any other data subjects’ rights – such as the right to lodge a complaint to the supervisory authority (Article77 GDPR) – or other controllers’ obligations cannot be restricted.

Necessity

The necessity of a measure can only be assessed if both the measure and the pursued interest are adequately defined. If these they are not, then it is impossible for a third party to assess the next element (proportionality). Therefore, the measure shall be considered unlawful. [4]

Proportionality

If a measure is necessary to protect the qualified public interest, then its proportionality will be assessed. In particular, following the EDPB reading, a proposed restriction measure should be supported by evidence describing the problem to be addressed by that measure, how it will be addressed by it, and why existing or less intrusive measures cannot sufficiently address it. [5]

Specific requirements

Article 23(2) outlines a list of requirements that the restrictive measure must respect to be acceptable from a more specific data protection perspective. In particular, any restrictive measure shall contain specific provisions at least, where relevant [6], as to (a) the purposes of the processing or categories of processing; (b) the categories of personal data; (c) the scope of the restrictions introduced; (d) the safeguards to prevent abuse or unlawful access or transfer; (e) the specification of the controller or categories of controllers; (f) the storage periods and the applicable safeguards taking into account the nature, scope and purposes of the processing or categories of processing; (g) the risks to the rights and freedoms of data subjects; and (h) the right of data subjects to be informed about the restriction, unless that may be prejudicial to the purpose of the restriction.

Controller’s obligations

Provided that the measure is valid and lawful as it successfully passed the assessment above, in light of the accountability principle (Article 5(2) GDPR), the controller should document the application of restrictions on concrete cases by keeping a record of their application. This record should include the practical reasons for the restrictions, which grounds among those listed in Article 23(1) GDPR, its timing and the outcome of the case-specific necessity and proportionality test.

The controller should lift the restrictions as soon as the circumstances that justify them no longer apply. When the restriction is lifted, data subjects can exercise all their rights. If the controller does not allow data subjects to exercise their rights after the restriction has been lifted, the data subject can submit a complaint to the SA against the controller, in accordance with Article 57(1)(f) GDPR.

---

[1] EDPB Guidelines 10/2020 on restrictions under Article 23 GDPR, p. 6.

[2] Guidelines, p. 7, which also review the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). See in particular footnote 8 of the Guidelines which mentions European Court  of  Human Rights,  14  September 2010,  Sanoma  Uitgevers B.V.  v.  The Netherlands, EC:ECHR:2010:0914JUD003822403, paragraph 83: “Further, as regards the words “in accordancewith the law” and “prescribed by law” which appear in Articles  8 to 11 of the  Convention, the Court observes that it has always understood the term “law” in its “substantive” sense, not its “formal” one; it has included both“written   law”,   encompassing   enactments of   lower   ranking  statutes   and   regulatory  measures   taken   byprofessional  regulatory bodies  under  independent rule-making  powers  delegated to  them  by Parliament, and unwritten law. “Law” must be understood to include both statutory law and judge-made “law”. In sum, the “law”is the provision in force as the competent courts have interpreted it”. On the notion of ‘provided for by law’, the criteria  developed  by the  European  Court of  Human  Rights should  be  used as  suggested  in CJEU  Advocates General opinions in joined cases C203/15 and C698/15, Tele2Sverige AB, ECLI:EU:C:2016:572, paragraphs 137-154 or in case C-70/10, Scarlet Extended, ECLI:EU:C:2011:255, paragraph 99.

[3] Guidelines, § 20, p. 8.

[4] This is the reading that we give to Guidelines, §39 (first two sentences), p. 10.

[5] Guidelines, § 41, p. 11.

[6] According to the EDPB Guidelines, the interpretation  of the  expression  “where relevant”  in Article 23 (2) GDPR is „linked to the circumstances“. In any case, any exception needs to be  duly justified  by  the legislator (Guidelines, § 46, p. 11).

Decisions

→ You can find all related decisions in Category:Article 23 GDPR