{"id":75815,"date":"2024-11-07T10:39:25","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T09:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lexxion.eu\/?post_type=dpi&p=75815"},"modified":"2024-11-07T10:39:25","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T09:39:25","slug":"data-protection-insider-issue-121","status":"publish","type":"dpi","link":"https:\/\/www.lexxion.eu\/en\/dpi\/data-protection-insider-issue-121\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Protection Insider, Issue 121"},"content":{"rendered":"

-ECtHR: Russian \u2018Foreign Agents\u2019 Legislation Breaches Various Article 8 Rights-<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n

On 22nd<\/sup> October, the ECtHR ruled that the Russian Act on \u2018foreign agents\u2019 severely restricts different aspects of the concerned individuals\u2019 private lives in breach of Article 8 ECHR in the case of Kobaliya and Others v Russia<\/em><\/u><\/a>. As to the facts of the case, as of 2012, the Russian legislature enacted provisions which, amongst others, allowed the designation of individuals \u2013 e.g. lawyers, NGO staff members, journalists and activists \u2013 as \u2018foreign agents\u2019 if they distributed materials or received funding from foreign entities. The personal data of such individuals, including \u2018full names, pseudonyms, previous names, dates of birth, taxpayer identification numbers, social security numbers and the grounds for their inclusion in the (foreign agents) register\u2019, was published by the Ministry of Justice. The publication of the data resulted not only in stigmatising the concerned individuals. Further measures such as enhanced (financial) reporting obligations, limitations on the public to which the individuals could distribute their materials and the obligation to mark their materials as \u2018foreign agent\u2019 resulted in further limitations of their Article 8 ECHR rights, of which the applicants complained. The ECtHR ruled that the various measures clearly constitute an interference with Article 8 ECHR. The Court decided to \u2018proceed on the assumption that the interference pursued the stated legitimate aims of protecting national security and preventing disorder by increasing public awareness of the applicants\u2019 \u201cforeign agent\u201d designation.\u2019 It did not examine the \u2018quality of the law\u2019 requirement, as the Russian government did not make any submissions on that point. The Court thus examined directly the necessity requirement. It noted that the designation as a \u2018foreign agent\u2019 was \u2018misleading\u2019 as no evidence was adduced that they indeed acted in the interest of foreign entities and the criteria for the designation were unjustifiably broad. According to the Court, the designation of individuals as \u2018foreign agents\u2019 under these circumstances did not pursue any public interest and no measures were taken to protect the personal data published. Furthermore, the reporting obligations on their expenditures, including their day-to-day transactions with friends and family, were too intrusive, especially bearing in mind the fact that it was not proven that the individuals had received foreign funding. Lastly, there were wide-ranging restrictions \u2018on the exercise of a profession, access to elected office and civil service, or the prohibition on teaching and writing for children\u2019. The Court noted that it had previously found that less severe restrictions constituted a breach of Article 8 ECHR and thus the above restrictions are, a fortiori,<\/em> a breach of Article 8 ECHR. Thus, the Court found the analysed legislative measures incompatible with Article 8 ECHR. Editorial note: The above summary does not include complaints under Article 10 and 11 ECHR in the case.<\/em><\/p>\n

-Updates from the EDPB-<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In the past two weeks, the EDPB published the following significant document:<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n