Compensation for unlawful processing of personal data
"Any person who has suffered material or immaterial damage as a result of a breach of this Regulation is entitled to receive compensation from the controller or processor for the damage suffered." It follows that three requirements come into play when assessing whether there is a right to compensation:
- there is a 'breach of the regulation', or unlawful processing of personal data (paragraph 2);
- 'Any person' suffers 'material or immaterial damage' (paragraph 3);
- A causal link ('as a result of') between the breach and the material or immaterial damage (paragraph 4).
The culpability of the unlawfulness of the processing is not a prerequisite for a right to compensation. In the case of a breach of the AVG, it is presumed under Article 82(3) AVG. The application of the doctrine of own fault is difficult to categorise into one of the three requirements and I therefore deal with it separately in section 5. (Machine translated)