Court overturns VoetbalTV’s 575,000 euro fine
On 27 July 2022, the highest administrative court in the Netherlands overturned Dutch Data Protection Authority’s EUR 575,000 fine issued to VoetbalTV, a football streaming service.
In its decision of July 2020, the Dutch DPA concluded that VoetbalTV’s processing of amateaur football’s personal data did not comply with Article 6(1)(f) GDPR since a legitimate interest – in Duch DPA’s view – could not be purely commercial in nature. VoetbalTV appealed the decision.
Court, in its decision, found that Duch DPA wrongly did not include all interests that VoetbalTV has put forward in its assessment. Had the DPA done so, the authority would have had to conclude that VoetbalTV does not only have a commercial interest in making images of football matches. The DPA has also not assessed whether the processing of personal data is necessary and no consideration has been made between the interests of VoetbalTV on the one hand and the interests of the data subjects on the other. Therefore, court ruled, the fine was wrongly imposed.
