Article 46 GDPR. Transfers subject to appropriate safeguards

Article 47 GDPR. Binding corporate rules

Article 49 GDPR. Derogations for specific situations

1. In the absence of an adequacy decision pursuant to Article 45(3), or of appropriate safeguards pursuant to Article 46, including binding corporate rules, a transfer or a set of transfers of personal data to a third country or an international organisation shall take place only on one of the following conditions:

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Where a transfer could not be based on a provision in Article 45 or 46, including the provisions on binding corporate rules, and none of the derogations for a specific situation referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph is applicable, a transfer to a third country or an international organisation may take place only if the transfer is not repetitive, concerns only a limited number of data subjects, is necessary for the purposes of compelling legitimate interests pursued by the controller which are not overridden by the interests or rights and freedoms of the data subject, and the controller has assessed all the circumstances surrounding the data transfer and has on the basis of that assessment provided suitable safeguards with regard to the protection of personal data. The controller shall inform the supervisory authority of the transfer. The controller shall, in addition to providing the information referred to in Articles 13 and 14, inform the data subject of the transfer and on the compelling legitimate interests pursued.

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Guidelines 4/2019 on Article 25 Data Protection by Design and by Default Version 2.0.

3.1 Transparency [24]

_{[24]Elaboration on how to understand the concept of transparency can be found in Article 29 Working Party. “Guidelines on transparency under Regulation 2016/679”. WP 260 rev.01, 11 April 2018. ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=51025 – endorsed by the EDPB}

65. The controller must be clear and open with the data subject about how they will collect, use and share personal data. Transparency is about enabling data subjects to understand, and if necessary, make use of their rights in Articles 15 to 22. The principle is embedded in Articles 12, 13, 14 and 34. Measures and safeguards put in place to support the principle of transparency should also support the implementation of these Articles.

66. Key design and default elements for the principle of transparency may include:

•Clarity – Information shall be in clear and plain language, concise and intelligible.

•Semantics – Communication should have a clear meaning to the audience in question.

•Accessibility – Information shall be easily accessible for the data subject.

•Contextual – Information should be provided at the relevant time and in the appropriate form.

•Relevance – Information should be relevant and applicable to the specific data subject.

•Universal design – Information shall be accessible to all data subjects, include use of machine readable languages to facilitate and automate readability and clarity.

•Comprehensible – Data subjects should have a fair understanding of what they can expect with regards to the processing of their personal data, particularly when the data subjects are children or other vulnerable groups.

• Multi-channel – Information should be provided in different channels and media, not only the textual, to increase the probability for the information to effectively reach the data subject.

• Layered – The information should be layered in a manner that resolves the tension between completeness and understanding, while accounting for data subjects’ reasonable expectations.

Article 6 GDPR. Lawfulness of processing

1. Processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that at least one of the following applies:

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(f) processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child.

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Article 6 GDPR. Lawfulness of processing

1. Processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that at least one of the following applies:

(a) the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes;

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Article 9 GDPR. Processing of special categories of personal data

1. Processing of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.

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2. Paragraph 1 shall not apply if one of the following applies:

(a) the data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes, except where Union or Member State law provide that the prohibition referred to in paragraph 1 may not be lifted by the data subject;

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Guidelines 4/2019 on Article 25 Data Protection by Design and by Default Version 2.0.

3.2 Lawfulness

67. The controller must identify a valid legal basis for the processing of personal data. Measures and safeguards should support the requirement to make sure that the whole processing lifecycle is in line with the relevant legal grounds of processing.

Article 22 GDPR. Automated individual decision-making, including profiling

1. The data subject shall have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her.

Article 4 GDPR. Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation:

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(4) ‘profiling’ means any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyse or predict aspects concerning that natural person’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behaviour, location or movements;

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Article 89 GDPR. Safeguards and derogations relating to processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes

1. Processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes, shall be subject to appropriate safeguards, in accordance with this Regulation, for the rights and freedoms of the data subject. Those safeguards shall ensure that technical and organisational measures are in place in particular in order to ensure respect for the principle of data minimisation. Those measures may include pseudonymisation provided that those purposes can be fulfilled in that manner. Where those purposes can be fulfilled by further processing which does not permit or no longer permits the identification of data subjects, those purposes shall be fulfilled in that manner.

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Article 29 Working Party Guidelines on transparency under Regulation 2016/679

“Proves impossible”

The situation where it “proves impossible” under Article 14.5(b) to provide the information is an all or nothing situation because something is either impossible or it is not; there are no degrees of impossibility. Thus if a data controller seeks to rely on this exemption it must demonstrate the factors that actually prevent it from providing the information in question to data subjects. If, after a certain period of time, the factors that caused the “impossibility” no longer exist and it becomes possible to provide the information to data subjects then the data controller should immediately do so. In practice, there will be very few situations in which a data controller can demonstrate that it is actually impossible to provide the information to data subjects. The following example demonstrates this.

Article 29 Working Party Guidelines on transparency under Regulation 2016/679

“Disproportionate effort”

In determining what may constitute either impossibility or disproportionate effort under Article 14.5(b), it is relevant that there are no comparable exemptions under Article 13 (where personal data is collected from a data subject). The only difference between an Article 13 and an Article 14 situation is that in the latter, the personal data is not collected from the data subject. It therefore follows that impossibility or disproportionate effort typically arises by virtue of circumstances which do not apply if the personal data is collected from the data subject. In other words, the impossibility or disproportionate effort must be directly connected to the fact that the personal data was obtained other than from the data subject.

Guidelines on consent under Regulation 2016/679

Scientific research

153. Recital 33 seems to bring some flexibility to the degree of specification and granularity of consent in the context of scientific research. Recital 33 states: “It is often not possible to fully identify the purpose of personal data processing for scientific research purposes at the time of data collection. Therefore, data subjects should be allowed to give their consent to certain areas of scientific research when in keeping with recognised ethical standards for scientific research. Data subjects should have the opportunity to give their consent only to certain areas of research or parts of research projects to the extent allowed by the intended purpose.”

Article 29 Working Party Guidelines on transparency under Regulation 2016/679

The factors referred to above in Recital 62 (number of data subjects, the age of the data and any appropriate safeguards adopted) may be indicative of the types of issues that contribute to a data controller having to use disproportionate effort to notify a data subject of the relevant Article 14 information.

Article 14.5(c) allows for a lifting of the information requirements in Articles 14.1, 14.2 and 14.4 insofar as the obtaining or disclosure of personal data “is expressly laid down by Union or Member State law to which the controller is subject”. This exemption is conditional upon the law in question providing “appropriate measures to protect the data subject’s legitimate interests”. Such a law must directly address the data controller and the obtaining or disclosure in question should be mandatory upon the data controller. Accordingly, the data controller must be able to demonstrate how the law in question applies to them and requires them to either obtain or disclose the personal data in question. While it is for Union or Member State law to frame the law such that it provides “appropriate measures to protect the data subject’s legitimate interests”, the data controller should ensure (and be able to demonstrate) that its obtaining or disclosure of personal data complies with those measures. Furthermore, the data controller should make it clear to data subjects that it obtains or discloses personal data in accordance with the law in question, unless there is a legal prohibition preventing the data controller from doing so. This is in line with Recital 41 of the GDPR, which states that a legal basis or legislative measure should be clear and precise, and its application should be foreseeable to persons subject to it, in accordance with the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU and the European Court of Human Rights. However, Article 14.5(c) will not apply where the data controller is under an obligation to obtain data directly from a data subject, in which case Article 13 will apply. In that case, the only exemption under the GDPR exempting the controller from providing the data subject with information on the processing will be that under Article 13.4 (i.e. where and insofar as the data subject already has the information). However, as referred to below at paragraph 68, at a national level, Member States may also legislate, in accordance with Article 23, for further specific restrictions to the right to transparency under Article 12 and to information under Articles 13 and 14.