In September 2009 Ms H. noticed that an adjacent field is on fire. She reported the incident to the Police, calling the emergency number. Because of her hearing problems, H. had problems communicating with the officer. After some time, the recorded call was posted online by an unknown person. The recording wasn’t redacted and included all data required to identify the caller such as her address.

“The recording became very popular”, says Irmina Pacho, a lawyer with the HFHR. “J.H. started receiving letters from all over Poland. She was mocked in many comments to the recording, among other things because of her health condition and the language she had used”, adds Ms Pacho.

Since the recording has been made public on the Internet due to the Police station’s failure to adequately protect her personal data, J.H. brought an action against the State Treasury, requesting that an apology to her be published in the local press. The claimant also demanded the removal of the recording from websites and non-pecuniary damages of PLN 60,000.

A Circuit Court found that the claimant’s personal interests had been violated but dismissed her claim for damages and removal of the recording. Furthermore, the court decided that apologies to J.H. should be sent in a registered letter. The court argued that the publication of apologies in the local press would be unreasonable, considering the scale and manner of the personal interests infringement in the case. The judgment has been appealed against.

In its amicus curiae opinion, the HFHR above all pointed to the social dimension of the problem. The Foundation emphasised that the call had been recorded by the emergency response system thus in the situation where a citizen has a reasonable expectation of having their data sufficiently protected. The HFHR also noted that the unedited version of the recording, including personal information about J.H., may be still found on numerous websites.

“We have also argued in our opinion that H’s data are being used on irreverent profiles on community websites”, says Irmina Pacho.