CJEU, Judgment of 1 October 2015, C-201/14, Bara
CJEU decision on transparency in the case of transmissions of personal data between public authorities and on the data subject's right to information.
1 Overview
The case concerned the transmission of tax data by the Romanian tax administration to the national health insurance fund, which had used those data to levy additional contributions. The data subjects had not been informed beforehand.
Reference: CJEU, judgment of 1 October 2015, C-201/14, Bara
2 Significance for the principles of the GDPR
The CJEU held that the information obligations under Articles 10 and 11 of Directive 95/46/EC cannot be circumvented by the mere existence of a statutory authorization to transmit the data. The data subject must be informed that their data are being transmitted between public authorities (para. 34). The judgment is the central CJEU decision on the principle of transparency, which is today expressly named in Article 5(1)(a) GDPR and given concrete form in Articles 13 and 14 GDPR.
About the author
About the author
This article was written by Dr. Thomas Helbing, specialist lawyer for IT law in Munich.
Since 2020 and continuously through today (2026), Handelsblatt has recognized Dr. Helbing as one of "Germany's Best Lawyers" in IT law and data protection law.
According to Kanzleimonitor.de (2024 to 2026 editions), he ranks among the leading lawyers for data protection and IT law and is listed among the top 100 lawyers in Germany (2024/25). Kanzleimonitor is considered a particularly meaningful market study because it is based exclusively on personal recommendations from in-house counsel.
Dr. Helbing has many years of advisory experience in data protection and IT law and advises clients of all sizes, from startups through fast-growing SaaS companies and unicorns to international corporate groups.
His professional background covers the full spectrum of IT and technology law practice. He began his career at a major international law firm, then gained in-house experience at a DAX-listed company, and is himself an entrepreneur and founder of several digital ventures. He also has hands-on programming experience, which allows him to understand technical systems, software architectures and digital business models not only from a legal perspective but also from a technical one.
For many years, his clients have included technology companies and SaaS providers, leading German research institutions and a systemically important German bank. His advisory focus lies in particular on GDPR compliance, the data economy, SaaS, AI regulation and IT contract law.
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