Resumen de European Court of Human Rights: : Satakunnan markkinapörssi Oy and Satamedia Oy v. Finland
After proceedings at national level over eight years, and after a preliminary ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJUE) on 16 December 2008 (Case C-73/07), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has delivered a judgment in a highly interesting case of conflicting rights between the right of privacy and the right to freedom of expression, in the domain of protection of personal data and data journalism. The Court has come to the conclusion that a prohibition issued by the Finnish Data Protection Board that prohibited two media companies (Satakunnan Markkinapörssi Oy and Satamedia Oy) from publishing personal data in the manner and to the extent Satamedia had published this data before, is to be considered a legitimate interference in the applicants’ right to freedom of expression and information. More precisely, the Finnish authorities forbade Satamedia from collecting, saving and processing to a large extent taxation data, with the result that an essential part of the information published in the applicant’s magazine Veropörssi could no longer be published and an SMS-service was discontinued. The ECtHR agrees with the Finnish authorities that the applicants could not rely on the exception of journalistic activities, as the publication of the large amount of taxation data by Satamedia was not justified by a public interest. The Court accepts the approach of the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court that it was necessary to interpret Satamedia’s freedom of expression strictly, in order to protect the right of privacy of Finnish citizens.
