A lawyer requested the personal information of church members - Enquiry Case Notes

No： 0538/C/2011

Title： A lawyer requested the personal information of church members

Content：

　　Priest A received a letter from Lawyer B requesting that he provide the registration data (including names and addresses) of certain church members, some of whom were even deceased.
　　Priest A asked whether providing the relevant data to Lawyer B would breach the “Personal Data Protection Act”.

Result：

　　Based on the inquirer-provided information about the case, GPDP would make the following response:
　　In accordance with the provisions in articles 4.1.(1) and 3.1 of the Personal Data Protection Act, the data processing related to living church members involved in this case is within the scope of regulation by the said Act. However, in general, the data processing related to deceased church members is not within the scope of regulation by the said Act.
　　In general terms, data controllers can process personal data under the conditions of legitimacy determined in Articles 6 to 8 of the “Personal Data Protection Act”, including when transferring personal data to other parties. As the inquiry in the present case involved religious data, the inquirer should take into particular consideration the provisions of Article 7.3.(2).
　　Moreover, and in addition to the “Personal Data Protection Act”, the inquirer should comply with other applicable legal provisions (for example: the relevant articles of the “Civil Code” and Law no. 5/98/M) as well.

Reference：
Please refer to "Personal Data Protection Act", articles 3，4，6，7，8 .

Back

個人資料保護辦公室

Gabinete para a Protecção de Dados Pessoais

Office for Personal Data Protection

News Update