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On 19 December 2019, Advocate General Saugmandsgaard Øe (AG) delivered his opinion in the high-profile case Data Protection Commissioner v. Facebook Ireland Limited (Schrems II), on whether the use of standard contractual clauses can constitute a valid legal basis for transferring and processing personal data outside of the European Union. The AG opined that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) should consider standard contractual clauses as a valid mechanism for the transfer of personal data abroad. Previously, in Schrems, the CJEU had declared the Commission’s ‘safe...

On 10 September 2019, the Amsterdam District Court delivered a notable judgment on the broadcasting of an investigative documentary concerning the death of a young man after a police shooting, despite objections of the deceased’s family to the broadcast. The Court rejected an application for the broadcast to be prohibited, holding that the broadcast’s interference with the family’s private life – in the light of various considerations, including the fact that the deceased’s mother had not given permission for the use of certain information – did not outweigh...

On 2 September 2019, the Court of North Holland found an anti-racism activist guilty of publishing threatening posts on Facebook in the form of altered images targeting a well-known actor during Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas), an annual Dutch holiday. The case arose during October 2018, when the activist posted a threat of aggravated assault by means of “sharing” two posts on his Facebook profile. The first photo depicted the accused wearing a hat reading “Sinterklaas Sniper”. The second post was a photo taken of J.F. Kennedy moments before his assassination, photo-shopped to replace the former U.S....

On 2 September 2019, the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (Spanish Data Protection Authority, AEPD) fined a supermarket EUR 150 000 for two infringements of the Spanish data protection legislation. On 25 April 2018, the AEPD initiated an investigation after the publication in several newspapers of images recorded by a CCTV system installed in a supermarket corresponding to events which had occurred in May 2011. The images showed the then President of the Community of Madrid supposedly putting some cosmetic products in her bag. The publication of those images was considered an infringement...

In a ruling of 9 September 2019, the Landgericht Berlin (Berlin District Court) rejected an application from a prominent German politician for information about the data of a number of users of the Facebook social media platform who had insulted her in the comments section below a post. However, the court decided that the verbal attacks did not constitute defamation and were therefore not libellous. In the controversial ruling, the judges discussed the circumstances under which the public expression of opinions about politicians constituted libel, an offence punishable under civil and criminal...