BRUSSELS– Covington represented the National Anti-Doping Agency of Austria (NADA Austria) before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a case concerning the application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to the publication of sanctioned athletes’ names on public websites. The court ruled that anti-doping authorities across the EU may publish the names of sanctioned athletes on public websites in accordance with applicable anti-doping laws and the GDPR..
Four Austrian athletes had lodged complaints with the Austrian data protection authority, seeking to prevent information about their sanctions being posted on the internet by the Austrian Anti-Doping Legal Committee and the National Anti-Doping Agency.
The judgment, which closes a multi-year legal dispute brought by the athletes, found, among other things, that national laws may permit the publication of the names of sanctioned athletes, consistent with the GDPR. The decision is one of the relatively rare instances in which the CJEU has confirmed that the online publication of personal data may be permissible under the GDPR, providing important guidance for sports governing bodies, anti-doping organizations, regulators, and courts across the European Union.
The Austrian data protection authority rejected the complaints brought by the athletes who wanted to prevent the publication of their names. The athletes subsequently appealed to the Austrian Federal Administrative Court (FAC), which referred several questions of EU law to the CJEU.
The questions referred to the CJEU sought clarification regarding:
- whether certain information published in connection with anti-doping sanctions constitutes health data under the GDPR;
- whether publication of sanctioned athletes' names is permissible under the GDPR;
- whether information regarding an athlete's sanction qualifies as judicial data; and
- whether athletes may bring a preventive complaint before publication of the information occurs.
Although the CJEU’s ruling will formally bind only the FAC that referred the questions to the CJEU, the Court’s interpretation of EU law will in practice have an effect across all the EU Member States in accordance with the erga omnes effect of CJEU judgements involving references for a preliminary ruling. As a result, national courts, data protection authorities, anti-doping organizations, and sports regulators throughout the European Union will need to take the judgment into account when interpreting and applying anti-doping and data protection laws.
The Austrian Federal Administrative Court must now apply the CJEU's interpretation of EU law to the four athletes' underlying cases. The court will assess whether Austria's anti-doping publication regime complies with the proportionality requirements articulated by the CJEU and whether those requirements were satisfied in each athlete's case.
The case represents an important development in the intersection of data protection law, sports regulation, athlete sanctions, and transparency requirements under anti-doping frameworks.
The Covington team was led by Dan Cooper, and included Kristof Van Quathem, and Anna Oberschelp de Meneses.
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