Under Hungarian law if someone’s right to the protection of personal data is infringed, the person may be entitled to compensation for non-material damages. But does the unlawful processing of personal data always mean the infringement of the right to the protection of personal data, triggering the right for compensation? A fresh decision of the Hungarian Supreme Court analysed in this article provides answer to these questions.
Facts
Beginning with the facts, the defendant registered an e-mail address to the Hungarian company registry as its delivery address which was the same as the claimant’s e-mail address except for one dot. Given that the dot was not detected by the mailing system, the claimant received several e-mails addressed to the defendant.
The claimant requested the defendant to modify the e-mail address in the company registry and to pay him compensation for non-material damages. The defendant changed the e-mail address but refused to pay any compensation.
The claimant filed an action for compensation, pretending that because of the unlawful processing of his personal data by the defendant, he received unsolicited e-mails, thus the defendant infringed his personality rights protected by the Hungarian Civil Code.
The defendant requested the court to dismiss the action claiming that he not infringed the personality rights of the claimant. When the claimant informed him about the situation, he immediately corrected his mistake.
Contradictory lower court judgments
In the first instance court’s view the claimant’s e-mail address used for private purposes shall be considered as personal data and the wrongful registration of the e-mail address constitutes unlawful processing of claimant’s personal data. Given that the claimant received several unsolicited e-mails for years, actual adverse consequences occurred, meaning that the claimant is entitled to grievance award.
By contrast, the second instance court dismissed the claimant’s action. According to the court, the claimant’s e-mail address does not contain a unique identifier as his name from which the e-mail address was composed is the same as the name of the defendant’s representative, thus it cannot be considered as personal data. Further, the defendant did not register the claimant’s email address at the company court but the one which included a dot, so he did not process the claimant’s e-mail address unlawfully.
Supreme Court decision
In the judicial review procedure, the Supreme Court delivered a so-called Solomonic judgement. Based on the provisions of the GDPR, the Supreme Court established that the e-mail address containing the full name of a natural person constitutes personal data. The mere fact that the claimant’s name is common does not mean that it cannot be considered as personal data, it just means that other personal data is needed to identify the claimant.
However, by analysing the provisions of the Hungarian Civil Code on the protection of personality rights, the Supreme Court concluded that the claimant is not entitled to compensation for non-material damages.
According to the Supreme Court, the rules of the Civil Code provide protection against a direct attack on the personality of a natural person which violates his personal right deriving from human dignity. The possible violation of data protection rules does not automatically mean the infringement of personality rights under the Civil Code.
The wrongful registration of the e-mail address caused by a clerical error was not a direct attack on the claimant’s personality and after becoming aware of the mistake, the defendant has immediately taken steps to correct the error.
Thus, the processing of the claimant’s e-mail address resulting from the misspelling does not give rise to an infringement of the right to privacy, even though the claimant received unsolicited e-mails which caused him inconvenience.
In this decision the Supreme Court confirmed its previous case-law that the unlawful processing of personal data, in the absence of other elements, does not automatically constitute a violation of the right to the protection of personal data.
Consequently, the entitlement to compensation for non-material damages in case of unlawful data processing can only come into play in more serious cases, if the data subject suffers significant damage.
By Anita Vereb, Attorney-at-lawda, SmartLegal Schmidt & Partners
