Official Journal of the European Union

C series

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C/2025/681

10.2.2025

(Case C-548/21,

Bezirkshauptmannschaft Landeck (Attempt to access personal data stored on a mobile telephone))

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences - Directive (EU) 2016/680 - Article 3(2) - Concept of ‘processing’ - Article 4 - Principles relating to processing of personal data - Article 4(1)(c) - Principle of ‘data minimisation’ - Articles 7, 8, 47 and Article 52(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union - Requirement that a limitation on the exercise of a fundamental right must be ‘provided for by law’ - Proportionality - Assessment of proportionality in the light of all the relevant factors - Prior review by a court or independent administrative authority - Article 13 - Information to be made available or given to the data subject - Limits - Article 54 - Right to an effective judicial remedy against a controller or processor - Police investigation in relation to narcotics trafficking - Attempt, by the police, to unlock a mobile telephone in order to gain access, for the purposes of that investigation, to the personal data stored in that telephone)

(C/2025/681)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: CG

Defendant: Bezirkshauptmannschaft Landeck

Operative part of the judgment

1.Articles 4(1)(c) of Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA, read in the light of Articles 7, 8 and Article 52(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,

must be interpreted as not precluding national legal rules which afford the competent authorities the possibility to access data contained in a mobile telephone for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences in general, provided those rules:

—define with sufficient precision the nature or categories of offences concerned,

—ensure respect for the principle of proportionality, and

—make reliance on that possibility, except in duly justified cases of urgency, subject to prior review by a judge or an independent administrative body.

2.Articles 13 and 54 of Directive 2016/680, read in the light of Article 47 and Article 52(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights,

must be interpreted as precluding national legal rules which authorise the competent authorities to attempt to access data contained in a mobile telephone without informing the data subject, within the framework of the applicable national procedural rules, of the grounds on which the authorisation to access such data, issued by a court or an independent administrative body, is based, once the communication of that information is no longer liable to jeopardise the tasks of those authorities under that directive.

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(1) OJ C 109, 7.3.2022.

ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/681/oj

ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)

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