On March 5, 2024, the Federal Court of Germany (BGH) issued its decision in case number VI ZR 330/21, in which it determined the scope of the term 'copies of personal data' under Article 15(3) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Background to the decision

In particular, the BGH stated that the plaintiff had requested copies of their personal information available to the defendants, including all emails, letters, telephone notes, and minutes.

Findings of the BGH

The BGH held, among other things, that the data subject has a right to request access to copies of the letters and emails written by the data subject.

However, in the case of letters and emails from the controller, telephone notes or minutes of conversations are not necessarily personal data of the data subject in their entirety, even if they contain information about the data subject. The data subject can request copies of the entire documents if the contextualization of the processed data is necessary to ensure their comprehensibility and to guarantee the data subject the effective exercise of their rights. In such cases, the data subject would be required to explain the need for the contextualization which was not done by the data subject in the present case.

Outcomes

In light of the above, the BGH partially overturned the judgment of the appeal court. 

You can read the decision, only available in German, here.