The CJEU issued a judgement on the right to compensation for GDPR infringement

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued a judgement on emotional damages under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by stating that ‘mere infringement of the GDPR does not give rise to a right to compensation’ and emphasized that no certain threshold needs to be reached to confer the right to compensation. The CJEU stated that the right to compensation under the GDPR is subject to three conditions: violation of the GDPR, material or non-material damage, and a causal link between the damage and the violation. It also noted that the GDPR does not provide any rules governing the assessment of damages, but it is at the discretion of each Member State to safeguard the rights of individuals under the GDPR.

The case concerns the Austrian Postal Service, which collected data from the Austrian population on their political affinities in 2017. The processing found that the claimant, who raised the case in Austrian courts, had a ‘high degree of affinity’ to a specific political party and accused the Austrian Postal Service of illegally processing his data as no consent was granted. The Austrian Supreme Court referred the case to the CJEU as it expressed doubts about the extent of the right to compensation under the GDPR and whether non-material damages reached the threshold of seriousness. The CJEU rejected these claims and gave the answer mentioned above.