21.2.2009

Official Journal of the European Union

C 44/6

(Case C-73/07) (1)

(Directive 95/46/EC - Scope - Processing and flow of tax data of a personal nature - Protection of natural persons - Freedom of expression)

(2009/C 44/10)

Language of the case: Finnish

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Tietosuojavaltuutettu

Defendants: Satakunnan Markkinapörssi Oy, Satamedia Oy

Re:

Reference for a preliminary ruling — Korkein hallinto-oikeus — Interpretation of Articles 3(1), 9 and 17 of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (OJ 1995 L 281, p. 31) — Scope — Collection, publication, transfer and processing in a text-messaging service of public tax data relating to the amount of income and taxable assets of natural persons

Operative part of the judgment

1) Article 3(1) of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data is to be interpreted as meaning that an activity in which data on the earned and unearned income and the assets of natural persons are:

—collected from documents in the public domain held by the tax authorities and processed for publication,

—published alphabetically in printed form by income bracket and municipality in the form of comprehensive lists,

—transferred onward on CD-ROM to be used for commercial purposes, and

—processed for the purposes of a text-messaging service whereby mobile telephone users can, by sending a text message containing details of an individual's name and municipality of residence to a given number, receive in reply information concerning the earned and unearned income and assets of that person,

must be considered as the ‘processing of personal data’ within the meaning of that provision.

2) Article 9 of Directive 95/46 is to be interpreted as meaning that the activities referred to at points (a) to (d) of the first question, relating to data from documents which are in the public domain under national legislation, must be considered as activities involving the processing of personal data carried out ‘solely for journalistic purposes’, within the meaning of that provision, if the sole object of those activities is the disclosure to the public of information, opinions or ideas. Whether that is the case is a matter for the national court to determine.

3) Activities involving the processing of personal data such as those referred to at points (c) and (d) of the first question and relating to personal data files which contain solely, and in unaltered form, material that has already been published in the media, fall within the scope of application of Directive 95/46.

(1) OJ C 95, 28.4.2007.