03/02/2020
CURIA - Documents
natural persons, in particular their right to privacy, with respect to the processing of personal data (see,
to this effect, IPI EU:C:2013:715, paragraph 28).
67 According to recital 25 in the preamble to Directive 95/46, the principles of protection laid down by
the directive are reflected, on the one hand, in the obligations imposed on persons responsible for
processing, in particular regarding data quality, technical security, notification to the supervisory
authority and the circumstances under which processing can be carried out, and, on the other hand, in
the rights conferred on individuals whose data are the subject of processing to be informed that
processing is taking place, to consult the data, to request corrections and even to object to processing in
certain circumstances.
68 The Court has already held that the provisions of Directive 95/46, in so far as they govern the
processing of personal data liable to infringe fundamental freedoms, in particular the right to privacy,
must necessarily be interpreted in the light of fundamental rights, which, according to settled case-law,
form an integral part of the general principles of law whose observance the Court ensures and which are
now set out in the Charter (see, in particular, Case C-274/99 P Connolly v Commission
EU:C:2001:127, paragraph 37, and Österreichischer Rundfunk and Others EU:C:2003:294,
paragraph 68).
69 Article 7 of the Charter guarantees the right to respect for private life, whilst Article 8 of the Charter
expressly proclaims the right to the protection of personal data. Article 8(2) and (3) specify that such
data must be processed fairly for specified purposes and on the basis of the consent of the person
concerned or some other legitimate basis laid down by law, that everyone has the right of access to data
which have been collected concerning him or her and the right to have the data rectified, and that
compliance with these rules is to be subject to control by an independent authority. Those requirements
are implemented inter alia by Articles 6, 7, 12, 14 and 28 of Directive 95/46.
70 Article 12(b) of Directive 95/46 provides that Member States are to guarantee every data subject the
right to obtain from the controller, as appropriate, the rectification, erasure or blocking of data the
processing of which does not comply with the provisions of Directive 95/46, in particular because of
the incomplete or inaccurate nature of the data. As this final point relating to the case where certain
requirements referred to in Article 6(1)(d) of Directive 95/46 are not observed is stated by way of
example and is not exhaustive, it follows that non-compliant nature of the processing, which is capable
of conferring upon the data subject the right guaranteed in Article 12(b) of the directive, may also arise
from non-observance of the other conditions of lawfulness that are imposed by the directive upon the
processing of personal data.
71 In this connection, it should be noted that, subject to the exceptions permitted under Article 13 of
Directive 95/46, all processing of personal data must comply, first, with the principles relating to data
quality set out in Article 6 of the directive and, secondly, with one of the criteria for making data
processing legitimate listed in Article 7 of the directive (see Österreichischer Rundfunk and Others
EU:C:2003:294, paragraph 65; Joined Cases C-468/10 and C-469/10 ASNEF and FECEMD
EU:C:2011:777, paragraph 26; and Case C-342/12 Worten EU:C:2013:355, paragraph 33).
72 Under Article 6 of Directive 95/46 and without prejudice to specific provisions that the Member States
may lay down in respect of processing for historical, statistical or scientific purposes, the controller has
the task of ensuring that personal data are processed ‘fairly and lawfully’, that they are ‘collected for
specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a way incompatible with those
purposes’, that they are ‘adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purposes for which they
are collected and/or further processed’, that they are ‘accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date’
and, finally, that they are ‘kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than
is necessary for the purposes for which the data were collected or for which they are further processed’.
In this context, the controller must take every reasonable step to ensure that data which do not meet the
requirements of that provision are erased or rectified.
73 As regards legitimation, under Article 7 of Directive 95/46, of processing such as that at issue in the
main proceedings carried out by the operator of a search engine, that processing is capable of being
covered by the ground in Article 7(f).
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