An association displayed court decisions on its website without deleting the names of the parties and without taking into account their requests to object to the online disclosure of their identity.


This practice was not compliant with CNIL recommendations of 29 November 2001. The CNIL has, indeed, attempted to find a balance between the necessity to make court decisions public and easily available and the right of the people concerned by a court decision to see such a moment of their life forgotten. (In France, this right is called
droit à l’oubli.
) The CNIL recommended anonymising court decisions before posting them online and reminded that when court decisions are not anonimysed, the people involved have a right to object, on legitimate grounds, to the display of their identity.


The CNIL noted that, contrary to what the association sustained, this right to object was still not respected by the association after formal requests of the CNIL and after numerous complaints of people whose identity was mentioned in court decisions posted on its website.


On 12 July 12 2011, the CNIL levied a 10,000 euro fine on the association and ordered it to stop posting non-anonymised court decisions to the site.


The CNIL took into account the extreme seriousness of the impact of such violations on the private and professional lives of people mentioned in court decisions, to consider the necessity of an injunction to stop displaying non-anonymised court decisions.


Moreover, the CNIL considered that the seriousness of data protection violations, the necessity for people to be aware of their data protection rights and the lack of cooperation of the association justified not only a financial sanction but also the publication of its decision on its website and on three well-known newspapers at the association’s expense.


 

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