RvS - 202002834/1/A3

RvS - 202002834/1/A3
Court:	RvS (Netherlands)
Jurisdiction:	Netherlands
Relevant Law:	Article 15(1) GDPR Article 15(3) GDPR
Decided:	18.11.2020
Published:	18.11.2020
Parties:	Ministry of Education, Culture and Science Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
National Case Number/Name:	202002834/1/A3
European Case Law Identifier:	ECLI:NL:RVS:2020:2738
Appeal from:	RvS (Netherlands) ECLI:NL:RVS:2020:352
Appeal to:	Unknown
Original Language(s):	Dutch
Original Source:	Rechtspraak.nl (in Dutch)
Initial Contributor:	n/a

The Dutch Council of State holds that a data subject has no right of access to personal data of third parties under Article 15(1) GDPR. Therefore, some sections in the documents at the center of the data subject's access request were rightly redacted.

English Summary

Facts

The appellant, in connection with a dispute with her son's former school, has requested the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science to inspect her and her son's file. The Minister has partially granted the request for access, but wrongly did not grant access to the personal policy views of civil servants.

Following a decision of the Council of State, the Minister amended its order and granted the appellant access to more documents, including to the personal policy views of civil servants, subject to the removal of the personal data of third parties.

The appellant appealed, arguing that the Minister has not provided all the documents covered by her request and has therefore failed to comply adequately with the Council of State’s first ruling. Also, according to the appellant, the Minister has glossed over more than just personal data in the documents submitted.

Dispute

Has the Minister provided all personal data covered by the access request of the data subject?

Holding

The appeal is unfounded.

The Council of State ruled that the appellant did not make it plausible that the Minister did not provide all the documents covered by her request. Also, in view of Article 15(1) of the GDPR, the appellant has no right to personal data of third parties. This includes information by which a third party can be directly or indirectly identified. The Minister has therefore rightly omitted/deleted the litigated passages.

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English Machine Translation of the Decision

The decision below is a machine translation of the Dutch original. Please refer to the Dutch original for more details.

Authority
    Council of State 
Date of judgment
    18-11-2020 
Date of publication
    18-11-2020 
Case number
    202002834/1 / A3
Jurisdictions
    Administrative law
Special characteristics
    First instance - single
Content indication

    By decision of 1 December 2017, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science partially granted [appellant] 's request for access to her and her son's file. In connection with a dispute with her son's former school, [appellant] has requested the Minister to inspect her and her son's file. By decision of 7 May 2018, the Minister declared [appellant] 's objection against the partial grant of that request unfounded. In a judgment of 5 February 2020, the Division ECLI: NL: RVS: 2020: 352 , ruled that the minister wrongly refused to provide access to the personal policy views of civil servants. In the decision of 10 March 2020 on the basis of the General Data Protection Regulation, under the erasure of personal data of third parties, the minister still gave access to the personal policy views of civil servants in the file of [appellant] and her son.
Locations
    Rechtspraak.nl
    Enriched pronunciation 

Statement

202002834/1 / A3.

Date of judgment: 18 November 2020

SECTION

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

Ruling in dispute between:

[appellant], also for her minor child, residing in [place of residence],

in

the Minister of Education, Culture and Science,

defendant.

Process course

By decision of 1 December 2017, the Minister partially granted [appellant] 's request to inspect her and her son's file.

By decision of 27 February 2018, the Minister amended the decision of 1 December 2017 and gave [appellant] access to more documents.

By decision of 10 March 2020, the Minister again decided on the objection of [appellant] against the amended decision of 1 December 2017, declared that objection well-founded and allowed access to more information from her and her son's file.

[Appellant] has appealed against this decision.

The minister has submitted a statement of defense.

The minister has submitted a further document.

[appellant] has granted permission to the Division as referred to in Article 8:29, fifth paragraph, of the General Administrative Law Act (hereinafter: Awb).

The Division heard the case in court on October 28, 2020, where [appellant], assisted by mr. S. Salhi, lawyer in The Hague, and the minister, represented by mr. RJ Oskam, appeared.

Considerations

preface

1. In connection with a dispute with her son's former school, [appellant] has requested the Minister to inspect her and her son's file. By decision of 7 May 2018, the Minister declared [appellant] 's objection against the partial grant of that request unfounded. In a decision of 5 February 2020, ECLI: NL: RVS: 2020: 352, the Division ruled that the minister wrongly did not allow access to the personal policy views of civil servants. In the decision of 10 March 2020, on the basis of Article 15, first and third paragraphs, of the General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter: GDPR ), formerly Article 35 of the Personal Data Protection Act, the Minister has still given access to personal data of third parties. in the personal policy views of civil servants in the file of [appellant] and her son.

Profession

2. [appellant] argues that the minister has not sufficiently followed up on the judgment of the Division of 5 February 2020. It is an extensive file and given the number of parties, more internal notes must be present than the minister has submitted. The minister also painted away more in the documents submitted than purely personal data, according to [appellant].

Review

Has the minister provided all personal data?

3. In its judgment of 5 February 2020, ECLI: NL: RVS: 2020: 352, the Division held that [appellant] has not demonstrated that the minister has not provided all the documents that fall under her request. The fact that the e-mail message of 22 August 2016, under point 7 of Annex A to the decision of 10 March 2020, refers to telephone conversations and, as [appellant] argues, interview reports thereof, does not give rise to a return of that judgment. to come. What [appellant] also stated about this at the hearing is that, in view of pages 43/90 and 45/90 of the documents accompanying the decision of 10 March 2020, respectively a fact sheet and a response to a question posed in the document in the documents submitted are missing and in view of the e-mail messages of 9 September 2016, under point 2 of Annex A, to the decision of 10 March 2020 and of 14 June 2016, under point 7 of Annex B, to the decision of 27 February 2018 respectively the minutes of the team meeting mentioned therein and a report of the sector day are missing, also give no reason to reconsider that opinion. [Buyer] could have argued this in the earlier proceedings. That is not about passages that the minister had previously painted.

The argument fails.

Did the minister mistakenly hide passages?

4. Pursuant to Article 8:29, paragraph 5, of the Awb, the Division has inspected the documents to which the request of [appellant] relates. The phrase in the penultimate paragraph, which was omitted by the Minister in the email of 22 August 2016, under point 7 of Annex A, of the decision on objection of 10 March 2020, concerns information that can be traced back to a third person. The lacquered passages in the other documents, in particular the passages on pages 5/90, 9/90, 11/90 and 13/90 of the documents accompanying the letter from the Minister of 6 November 2019, read in conjunction with the decision of March 10, 2020 and the passage in the e-mail message of February 28, 2017, under point 6 of Annex C, to the decision of February 27, 2018 to which [appellant] pointed out during the hearing before the Division, all also concern personal data of third parties. . In view of Article 15, first paragraph, of the [appellant] has GDPR , no right to personal data from third parties. This includes, in view of Article 4, opening words and under 1, of the GDPR , information with which a third party can be directly or indirectly identified. The minister has therefore rightly painted these passages away.

For the assertion of [appellant] that in the e-mail messages under points 13 and 14 of Appendix B, the organizational department to which the e-mail message is addressed and its date are missing, the Minister rightly referred to the inventory list. This shows that the e-mail messages were sent by the Stichting Appropriate Primair Onderwijs Haaglanden partnership to the Education Inspectorate and the date on which this happened.

The argument fails.

Finally

5. The appeal is unfounded.

6. There is no reason for an order for costs.

Decision

The Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State:

declares the appeal unfounded.

Laid down by mr. AWM Bijloos, member of the single judge, in the presence of mr. J. de Vries, registrar.

The member of the single judge is prevented from signing the decision.

The registrar is unable to sign the decision.

Delivered publicly on November 18, 2020

582-960.