Take-Aways (AI)
- Art. 15 GDPR grants a comprehensive right of access to stored and processed personal data, including medical documents and expert opinions.
- The right to information does not include all internal processes, notes or correspondence already known to the data subject or legal assessments or analyses.
- The right to a copy is limited to the personal data processed; the right of access must not be interpreted extensively or misused.
The Regional Court of Cologne (LG Cologne, AZ 26 O 25/18, March 18, 2019) has become also on the right to information under Art. 15 GDPR expressed:
[From Art. 15 GDPRThis results in a comprehensive right of access to the personal data stored or processed. […] According to these principles and on the basis of the recitals, medical records, expert opinions or other comparable communications from other sources also constitute “personal data”. In the opinion of the Board, however, the right to information does not relate to all of the defendant’s internal processes, such as memos, or to the fact that the person concerned can have all exchanged correspondence, which is already known to the person concerned, printed out and sent to him again (so the OLG Cologne to § 34 BDSG a.F., decision dated July 26, 2018, 9 W 15/18). In this respect, legal assessments or analyses also do not constitute personal data in this sense. The claim under Art. 15 DS-GVO is not used for simplified accounting of the data subject, but is intended to ensure that the data subject can assess the scope and content of the personal data stored. Consequently, Article 15 (3) stipulates DS-GVOthat the person concerned receives a copy of (only) the personal data that are the subject of the processing. In the present case, the defendant has provided various information and details […] and stated that further personal data about the plaintiff was not stored or processed. The plaintiff has not made any substantiated submission as to what other information might have been processed by the defendant. […]
In the discussion about the scope of the right to information and its abuse, this supports the view, which is gaining ground, that the right to information must not be interpreted too extensively.