Austria: Deletion does not necessarily mean destruction

Article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) stipulates the data subject the right to erasure, also called right to be forgotten. The Austrian Data Protection Authority decided that the right to erasure not necessarily mean destruction of the stored data. According to the Authority anonymization may be sufficient.

The decision is based on a complaint of an Austrian who request his former insurance company to delete all stored data. The insurance company deleted his e-mail address and phone number as well as insurance offers and stopped all advertising. However, name and address of the data subject were anonymized and the insurance company told the data subject that the data would be destructed in March 2019.

The Austrian Data Protection Authority proved the company right. According to Art. 4 Nr. 2 GDPR the company can choose whether it deletes or destructs the stored data, it only had to “be ensured that neither the person responsible himself nor a third party can restore a personal reference without disproportionate effort”, explained the Authority.