Judgment of the Court (First Chamber) of 12 January 2023 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Oberster Gerichtshof – Austria) – RW v Österreichische Post AG

(Case C-154/21) ¹

(Reference for a preliminary ruling – Protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data – Regulation (EU) 2016/679 – Article 15(1)(c) – Data subject’s right of access to his or her data – Information about the recipients or categories of recipient to whom the personal data have been or will be disclosed – Restrictions)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Oberster Gerichtshof

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: RW

Defendant: Österreichische Post AG

Operative part of the judgment

Article 15(1)(c) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation),

must be interpreted as meaning that the data subject’s right of access to the personal data concerning him or her, provided for by that provision, entails, where those data have been or will be disclosed to recipients, an obligation on the part of the controller to provide the data subject with the actual identity of those recipients, unless it is impossible to identify those recipients or the controller demonstrates that the data subject’s requests for access are manifestly unfounded or excessive within the meaning of Article 12(5) of Regulation 2016/679, in which cases the controller may indicate to the data subject only the categories of recipient in question.

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¹ OJ C 217, 7.6.2021.