The Higher Regional Court of Cologne Germany has held that internal recorded statements, conversation notes or telephone notes constitute personal data and copies of them must be disclosed in response to a data access request.
The court also held that:
- The information is not a trade secret since claims made by the plaintiff against his insurance company can not be protected against his or her business secret.
- It is not economically impossible for data controllers to provide this information. Data controllers who use electronic data processing should organize it as required by law, and in particular to ensure that data protection and the resulting rights of third parties are taken into account.
- The duty to refrain from infringing upon the rights of third parties when producing information as part of a data access request does not prevent the disclosure of such notes.
Read the full court decision.
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