Constitutional Court Decided That Right to Request Protection of Personal Data Has Been Violated

With the application number 2019/4055 and dated January 14, 2019 Constitutional Court Decision has been published in the Official Gazette No. 32161 on April 12, 2023, it has been concluded that the Right to Request the Protection of Personal Data by sharing arrest, type of crime and identity information without his/her consent in the petitions sent by the person in the Penal Institution to Public Authorities Has Been Violated.

The applicant to the Penal Institution where he was convicted; requested that the arrest, type of crime and identity information not be transferring in the petitions. After the Penal Institution decided that it would not share the relevant personal data upon the applicant's request, the applicant applied to the office of judge of execution for the annulment of the decision. The applicant's request was rejected by the office of judge of execution.

Although the applicant did not have explicit consent to the transferring of his personal data, the Constitutional Court examined the allegation that the transferring of the relevant personal data by the Penal Institution violated his right to request the protection of the personal data.

In the decision of the Constitutional Court; that the data cannot be processed and transferred without the explicit consent of the data subject, exceptionally in the cases specified within the scope of the Article 28 of Law on the Protection of Personal Data, data processing activities may be carried out without explicit consent, however, there is no exceptional situation in the case subject to the application and that data processing and sharing activities without the explicit consent of the person in question violate the right to request the protection of personal data.

You can access relevant Official Gazette from here (In Turkish).

Should you have any queries or need further details, please contact your customer representative.