Belgian SA rejects a complaint against an online telephone directory

26 August 2024

Background information

  • Date of final decision: 26 June 2024
  • Cross-border case
    The decision was taken by national supervisory authorities following the One-Stop-Shop cooperation procedure (OSS)
  • LSA: BE SA 
  • and CSAs: HU SA 
  • Controller:    KAPITOL S.A. (new name: INFOBEL S.A.), controller name anonymised in the decision sent to the EDPB
  • Legal Reference (s): Article 4 (Definitions), Article 5 (Principles relating to processing of personal data),  Article 6 (Lawfulness of processing),  Article 7 (Conditions for consent), Article 30 (Records of processing activities
  • Decision:    No violation,  Choose one item,  Choose one item or Add here your free text for the decision 
  • Key words:    Further processing,   Lawfulness of processing,  Right to erasure


Summary of the Decision
 

Origin of the case

The subject of the complaint concerns the unlawfulness of processing and publishing the complainants’ personal data in an online telephone directory. The complainant resides in Hungary, and the data controller is registered as a company in Belgium. Based on Article 60.8 of GDPR, the decision to reject the complaint was made by the Belgian Supervisory Authority (SA), and was adopted and notified by the Hungarian SA.

 

Key Findings 

The inspection by the Belgian SA concludes that there is no violation of Articles 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4, 17, 24 and 25.1 GDPR as stated by the complainant, as it was shown by the defendant that data subjects have three ways to request data erasure. The Belgian SA found violations of the GDPR outside the scope of the complaint, which will be addressed in another procedure against the data controller. 

 

Decision 

The Belgian SA, after deliberation, decided to dismiss the present complaint based on its discretionary power granted by its procedural rules in its own member state law. One of the reasons for the dismissal was on one hand that the personal data have ceased to be accessible online by the time of the procedure. Moreover, the documents in the file do not sufficiently support that there has actually been a violation as far as the subject of the complaint is concerned. Since the preparation of the inspection report, the defendant has modified its website, so that the findings of the Belgian SA are no longer current. Similar complaints have been filed against the same defendant, with the general practice of the current file also being investigated.

For further information: the decision is not published on the website of the Hungarian SA.
 

The news published here does not constitute official EDPB communication, nor an EDPB endorsement. This news item was originally published by the national supervisory authority and was published here at the request of the SA for information purposes. Any questions regarding this news item should be directed to the supervisory authority concerned.