HDPA (Greece) - 26/2023

HDPA - 26/2023
Authority:	HDPA (Greece)
Jurisdiction:	Greece
Relevant Law:	Article 15 GDPR Article 2 par. 8 of National Law 3051/2002 Article 24 par. 1 of National Law 2690/1999
Type:	Complaint
Outcome:	Rejected
Started:	14.06.2023
Decided:	14.06.2023
Published:	26.06.2023
Fine:	n/a
Parties:	n/a
National Case Number/Name:	26/2023
European Case Law Identifier:	n/a
Appeal:	n/a
Original Language(s):	Greek
Original Source:	HDPA (in EL)
Initial Contributor:	Anastasia Tsermenidou

The Greek DPA held that genealogical research on a family surname did not fall within the scope of Article 15 GDPR, as "personal data concerning [the data subject]."

English Summary

Facts

The data subject filed a complaint against the Director of Primary Education for an alleged violation of Article 15 GDPR.

The data subject wanted to conduct a genealogical investigation on his family surname. He sent an email to the Directorate of Primary Education (the controller), requesting access to their pupil registration database to search the entries of his surname therein. In addition, the data subject requested in his complaint that the Authority order the Directorate of Primary Education to allow him immediate research access to the books of the closed/abolished Primary School's curriculum, to research the surname entries in them. The controller replied that they were only able to provide him with numerical data (number of pupils per year) and not the names, as this would be an unlawful disclosure of personal data.

The Authority dismissed the complaint, holding that there was no violation of the data subject's rights and that access requests for research purposes was not within the competence of the Authority to order. In particular, the Authority considered that his request to the controller (Directorate Primary Education) did not constitute an exercise of the right of access to personal data concerning him/her under Article 15 GDPR, but a request to carry out scientific research.

Subsequently, the complainant lodged an objection to the decision and a request for a review of his case, in which he alleged that his request was not a request to carry out scientific research, but a personal genealogical research, which is far from scientific research and the data in the requested search concern him and thus fall under Article 15 GDPR.

Holding

The DPA rejected the request for review. Genealogical research on a family surname did not fall within the scope of Article 15 GDPR, as "personal data concerning [the data subject]." The data subject's request was not an access request for the purposes of Article 15 GDPR. He requested access to the Directorate's entire database (containing other data subject's personal data), not access to data directly relating to him.

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English Machine Translation of the Decision

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

Summary
The Authority considered a request for remedy against the act of filing a complaint. Taking into account articles 2 par. 8 of Law 3051/2002 and 24 par. 1 of Law 2690/1999, as well as the Authority's own jurisprudence, the Authority rejected the treatment request in question, as the applicant does not invoke either submits material new evidence in support of its claims from the assessment of which a different judgment could, under the legal conditions, result.