Brussels, 11/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - The data protection directive (95/46/EC) applies to a video recording made with a surveillance camera installed by a person on his family home and directed towards the public footpath. Thus, anyone using a public road or suspected of malicious acts against a family home with such a surveillance system could turn to this directive, given that they are likely to be recognised as a result of recordings made without their agreement.
That, in substance, is the ruling (case C-212/13) delivered by the Court of Justice of the EU on Thursday 11 December after the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic sought its guidance. The Czech court was hearing a dispute between the Czech Office for the Protection of Personal Data and the owner of a family house who, thanks to recording by a surveillance camera installed on his home but directed away from it, was able to have identified two people suspected of breaking a window in the house after firing a catapult shot from the footpath. The Czech court asked the Court of Justice whether the recording made by the homeowner constituted a category of data processing that is not covered by the directive, on the grounds that that recording was made by a natural person in the course of purely personal or household activities.
In their ruling, the European judges reject this possible interpretation. They find that the images of persons recorded by the homeowner's surveillance camera indeed constitute personal data and, as such, fall within the scope of the directive since they allow the persons filmed to be identified. Similarly, video surveillance involving the recording and storage of personal data falls within the scope of the directive, since it constitutes automatic data processing. This processing, moreover, cannot be regarded as an activity which is a “purely personal or household activity” insofar as the video surveillance extends to a public space. The Court states, however, that national courts must take into account the provisions in the directive which permit the processing of personal data without the consent of the data subject, in particular when it is in the legitimate interest of the data processor (in this instance, in protecting the property, health and life of his family and himself) and when it is needed by the public authorities to protect citizens or as part of investigations that lead to criminal prosecutions. (FG)