CJEU: Member States must provide data protection derogations for journalistic purposes

## Court Summary Personal data: Surname, given name of certain natural persons whose income exceeds certain thresholds as well as the amount of their earned and unearned income constitute personal data. The fact the the information was made publicly available by a governmental agency and that is had already been published in unaltered form in the media does not exempt it from the scope of data protection law. ## Excerpt 35 It must be held that the data to which this question relates, which comprise the surname and given name of certain natural persons whose income exceeds certain thresholds as well as the amount, to the nearest EUR 100, of their earned and unearned income, constitute personal data within the meaning of Article 2(a) of the directive, since they constitute ‘information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person’ (see also Joined Cases C‑465/00, C‑138/01 and C‑139/01 Österreichischer Rundfunk and Others [2003] ECR I-4989, paragraph 64). 46 Moreover, it should be pointed out that the directive does not lay down any further limitation of its scope of application. 47 In that regard, the Advocate General observes at point 125 of her Opinion that Article 13 of the directive permits derogations from its provisions only in certain cases, which do not extend to the provisions of Article 3. 48 Lastly, it must be held that a general derogation from the application of the directive in respect of published information would largely deprive the directive of its effect.

It would be sufficient for the Member States to publish data in order for those data to cease to enjoy the protection afforded by the directive. 49 The answer to the fourth question should therefore be that activities involving the processing of personal data such as those referred to at points (c) and (d) of the first question and relating to personal data files which contain solely, and in unaltered form, material that has already been published in the media, fall within the scope of application of the directive.

Secondly, and in order to achieve a balance between the two fundamental rights, the protection of the fundamental right to privacy requires that the derogations and limitations in relation to the protection of data provided for in the chapters of the directive referred to above must apply only in so far as is strictly necessary. 59 Secondly, the fact that the publication of data within the public domain is done for profit-making purposes does not, prima facie, preclude such publication being considered as an activity undertaken ‘solely for journalistic purposes’. As Markkinapörssi and Satamedia state in their observations and as the Advocate General noted at point 82 of her Opinion, every undertaking will seek to generate a profit from its activities. A degree of commercial success may even be essential to professional journalistic activity. 61 It follows from all of the above that activities such as those involved in the main proceedings, relating to data from documents which are in the public domain under national legislation, may be classified as ‘journalistic activities’ if their object is the disclosure to the public of information, opinions or ideas, irrespective of the medium which is used to transmit them. They are not limited to media undertakings and may be undertaken for profit-making purposes.