OLG Frankfurt am Main - 6 U 127/24
| OLG Frankfurt am Main - 6 U 127/24 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court: | OLG Frankfurt (Germany) |
| Jurisdiction: | Germany |
| Relevant Law: | Article 18 GDPR |
| Decided: | 31.10.2024 |
| Published: | 12.11.2024 |
| Parties: | |
| National Case Number/Name: | 6 U 127/24 |
| European Case Law Identifier: | ECLI:DE:OLGHE:2024:1031.6U127.24.0A |
| Appeal from: | LG Wiesbaden (Germany) 2 O 35/24 |
| Appeal to: | Unknown |
| Original Language(s): | German |
| Original Source: | beck (in German) |
| Initial Contributor: | tjk |
The court found a the score lock lawful, since it based on Article Article 18 GDPR and does not distort or falsify information.
English Summary
Facts
The data subject challenges the block imposed by the controller on the data subject of the database for the provision of information on contractual partners with the application to lift the so-called "score block" and to refrain from a future block until the decision in the main action.
The controller is a credit rating agency. Its contractual partners provide it with information relevant to the database from their business relationships with their customers. The controller stores this information as entries in its database in order to be able to provide its contractual partners with information.
The parties are in dispute before the Regional Court of Münster about the legality of the so-called score value, which the controller determines on the basis of the data available to it and which is intended to assess the creditworthiness of the person concerned. With regard to this procedure, the controller imposed a so-called score block until its conclusion, with the consequence that no more credit score values are transmitted in the event of a corresponding query by the controller's contractual partners.
The controller refused to lift the block before the end of the legal dispute before the Regional Court of Münster.
The Regional Court dismissed the application for a preliminary injunction by judgment of April 5, 2024.
The data subject's appeal is directed against this. The data subject in the applies, to order the controller to immediately to lift the block imposed on the applicant of the database for the provision of information on contractual partners, the so-called "score block".
The controller proceedings requests that the appeal be dismissed.
Holding
The court held, that there was no (quasi)contractual basis for the data subject's claim, as there is no contractual relationship between the controller and the data subject.
The court also found, that the GDPR does not provide the data subject with a basis for a claim either.
The court found, that the data subject seeks the (re)commencement of the processing of personal data by the controller in the form of scoring and the transmission of the scoring value to third parties. This is a claim in connection with data processing. In this respect, however, the data subject is only entitled to the rights of data subjects under Chapter III of the GDPR. According to this, however, data subjects can only demand that a data controller carry out data processing to the extent that incorrect personal data is corrected (Article 16 GDPR), personal data is deleted (Article 17 GDPR), former recipients of personal data are informed of a correction, deletion or restriction of the processing of personal data (Article 19 GDPR) or personal data is made available for transfer under certain circumstances (Article 20 GDPR).
The data subject does not assert any such claims. There is therefore no basis for the claims asserted by him under data protection law.
The court also found, that no violation of the data subject's general right of personality occurred. The court held, that the controller lawfully restricted the data processing according to Article 18 GDPR after the data subject objected to the processing.
Furthermore, the court held, the controller in refraining from expressing an opinion about the data subject did not distort or falsify the representation of the data subject.
Specifically the court also denied, that the notifications of the controller to third parties that a score value is not communicated or cannot be calculated impaired the rights of the data subject. The court found that this notification does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the creditworthiness or other financial circumstances of the data subject.
Anyway, the court held, that the decision of the controller to no longer provide information on the score values is based on an objective reason as according to Article 18 GDPR, the controller is required to only store the data in question, when the data subject's consent to the processing of certain data has not been declared.
Additionally the court stated, that the consequences for the controller are ultimately unforeseeable if it were to continue providing the information. The court found, that if the data subject wishes to obtain further information, it must declare a clear, comprehensive and legally effective waiver of claims for damages based on previous processing practice. Thus, the court held, that the relationship between the parties must not only be considered in isolation from other circumstances. The contractual partners expect the controller to communicate the score values in accordance with its general principles, as this is the only way to reliably classify them.
The court also held, that a monopolistic position of the controller did not matter for the case at hand.
Comment
Unfortunately the beck-Verlag is the only source for this decision and it's only available behind a paywall
Further Resources
Share blogs or news articles here!
English Machine Translation of the Decision
The decision below is a machine translation of the German original. Please refer to the German original for more details.
