If a mobile phone company mistakenly enters a customer's SCHUFA entry due to alleged but non-existent payment arrears, the customer can claim non-material damages under the GDPR. This was confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in a case in which a customer's SCHUFA entry was only deleted after around 10 months, although the company established after just 10 days that the requirements for such an entry were not met.
The customer, who was even temporarily refused a loan by her bank as a result of the SCHUFA entry, then demanded non-material damages of 6,000 euros. In the lower courts, however, she was only awarded compensation of 500 euros. The customer appealed against this decision to the BGH, but was unsuccessful. The BGH considered the compensation of 500 euros to be appropriate and emphasized that the claim for non-material damages primarily has a compensatory function and does not serve as a punishment.
In the context of this decision, the case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on non-material damages is important. The ECJ has clarified that:
- Plaintiffs bear the responsibility to demonstrate damages in concrete terms and to sufficiently specify immaterial damages.
- The mere fear of misuse of personal data can constitute compensable non-material damage, whereby it must be proven in each individual case that this fear is justified.
- The concept of damage does not include a materiality threshold or de minimis limit, meaning that even minor damage is eligible for compensation.
- The amount of compensation is a matter for the national courts, which must observe the principles of equivalence and effectiveness of EU law.
- Damages have no deterrent or punitive function.
- A purely hypothetical risk of data misuse is not sufficient to claim damages; rather, individual prejudice must be demonstrated.
Source: www.haufe.de