On 29 December 2020, advocacy group NOYB announced the Viennese Superior Court has ruled that Facebook must pay EUR 500 in emotional damages to Mr. Schrems and give him full access to all the data it holds about him.
In this case, the Viennese Superior Court determined that Facebook uses the contract as a legal basis for data processing instead of explicit and unambiguous consent, which was used before 25 May 2018. NOYB underlines that this approach implies that users are not able to withdraw their agreement when they change their minds. Furthermore, NOYB outlines that the majority of the users assume that this alleged contract represents, in fact, their consent.
In addition, given the right of access provided by the GDPR, the Viennese Superior Court also ruled that Facebook has the obligation to inform the data subjects regarding the data obtained from other parties, as well as the data transferred to other parties. Therefore, the Court ordered Facebook to pay Mr. Schrems EUR 500 in emotional damages, considering the company’s consistent failure to provide such data.
The NOYB press release is available here.
