Datenschutzrechtliche Zweckbindung und die Weiterverbreitung bereits veröffentlichter Daten: Betrachtungen anlässlich der Google-Spain-Entscheidung des Europäischen Gerichtshofs

The principle of purpose limitation is one of the basic principles of data protection. Accordingly, personal data must be collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not be processed further in a way incompatible with those purposes. However, it is extremely difficult to guarantee purpose limitation on the Internet. Especially when users search on the basis of an individual's name, search engines enable a structured overview of the information relating to that individual. Therefore, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) held that the search engine's activity of finding personal data published or placed on the Internet by third parties must be classified as "processing of personal data" within the meaning of data protection directive EC/95/46 (Judgment of 13 May 2014, Google Spain v. AEPD, Case C-131 / 12). This judgment balances the right to privacy and data protection in European law on the one hand with the legitimate interest of the public to access such information on the other in a very proper way. Furthermore, it provides an important impulse for public debate concerning upcoming General Data Protection Regulation. Perhaps the Google Spain decision, therefore, contributes to maintaining the principle of purpose limitation in the digital age.