GHAL - 200.266.445
| - 200.266.445 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court: | (Netherlands) |
| Jurisdiction: | Netherlands |
| Relevant Law: | Article 5 GDPR Article 17 GDPR Article 21 GDPR |
| Decided: | 28.04.2020 |
| Published: | 13.05.2020 |
| Parties: | ABN AMRO Bank NV |
| National Case Number/Name: | 200.266.445 |
| European Case Law Identifier: | ECLI:NL:GHARL:2020:3464 |
| Appeal from: | Rb. Gelderland (Netherlands) |
| Appeal to: | |
| Original Language(s): | Dutch |
| Original Source: | de Rechtspraak (in Dutch) |
| Initial Contributor: | n/a |
The Arnhem-Leeuwarden Court of Appeal confirmed the first instance decision regarding the balancing of interests under Article 21(1) GDPR. In particular, the Court also considered the subjective position of the data subject. At the time of the facts, she was a registered accountant, and this made her conduct even more serious.
English Summary
Facts
In order to obtain a loan, the data subject provided false document to the bank. Once the bank realized the fraud, it cancelled the contract and inserted the data subject's details into two registries (IR and EVR) meant to protect and preserve the integrity of the financial system.
Before the Court of First Instance, the data subject asked the deletion of her personal data from the registries or alternatively to limit the duration of the registrations to one year, or a period to be determined by the Court.
The Court of First Instance rejected the requests and the data subject challenged the decision before the Arnhem-Leeuwarden Court of Appeal.
Dispute
Τhe Court of Appeal had to assess whose interests prevail in this case: the appellant´s interest to have her data deleted or the bank´s interests to keep data subject´s details in the registries and preserve the integrity of the financial system.
Holding
Under Article 21 (1) GDPR, the Court should balance the interests at stake.
On the one hand, the interest of the bank to preserve the safety and integrity of the financial sector. On the other hand, the data subject right to interrupt a damaging processing.
In the present case, data subject´s actions undoubtedly threatened the interests of the financial sector.
However, the appellant argues that her interests should prevail over the bank´s. First, she works as an accountant in the financial sector where this information is easily accessible and thus damages her reputation. Second, registrations make it impossible for her to obtain another mortgage and buy a new house.
The Court of Appeal rejected these arguments. The incident was serious, especially for an accountant. This therefore justified the adverse consequences that the appellant may experience in her work. Furthermore, the appellant had not proved the necessity of a new house, since she had been living in a (different) home that she owned.
The interests and circumstances alleged by the appellant were therefore insufficient for the Court to reform the first decision. In view of the above, the interest of ABN AMRO in maintaining the registrations outweighs the interests of the data subject.
As per the alternative request, the Court of Appeal did not consider the 8-years limit to be disproportionate due to the seriousness of the incident. The alternative request is therefore also rejected and the first decision entirely confirmed.
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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.
