By Jacqueline Clover

The Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) has ruled that an analysis produced by an administrative agency to inform and support the agency’s formal decisions (‘legal analysis’) is not of itself “personal data” as defined under Directive 95/46/EC (the ‘EU Data Protection Directive’).  This is the case even where the legal analysis contains information that is clearly “personal data”, such as an individual’s name, date of birth, nationality and gender.  The ruling of 17 July 2014 in Joined Cases C-141/12 and C-372/12 YS v. Minister voor Immigratie, Integratie en Asiel, and Minister voor Immigratie, Integratie en Asiel v. M, S, is available here.

It is an important decision for two reasons.  First, it clarifies the boundaries of what constitutes “personal data” under EU law. And, second, it clarifies that a data subject’s right of access under the EU Data Protection Directive does not necessarily require access to the actual records containing personal data. In some cases, a full summary of the personal data in an intelligible form suffices.Continue Reading EU Court of Justice clarifies the definition of personal data and scope of access requests