The disclosure of telephone files offends the right to privacy
JUDGMENT
Savotchko v. the Republic of Moldova 28-03-2017 (no. 33074/04)
SUMMARY
Privacy policy. Disclosure of telephone files. The case concerned disclosure of the telephone file of the applicant during the proceedings between the applicant and her mother.
The disputed files included, inter alia, information and data on the numbers called and the date, time, duration and cost of the calls made by Mrs Savotchko. The court relied on the telephone files in question, on the basis of which it partially dismissed the applicant’s claim regarding its tax exemption.
Relying in particular on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life), Ms Savotchko argued that the disclosure of her telephone files had violated the right to respect for her private life and correspondence.
The Court has found that there has been an infringement of Article 8
PROVISION
Article 8
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicant, Olga Savotchko, is a Russian national who was born in 1952 and lives in Chișinău. The case concerned the disclosure, in the context of a dispute between Ms Savotchko and her mother, of the applicant’s monthly telephone records.
An inheritance dispute between Ms Savotchko and her mother was brought before the civil courts. In the course of the proceedings Ms Savotchko’s mother submitted the applicant’s monthly telephone records, which had been communicated to her by the company M – the national operator of fixed-line telephones, whose sole shareholder was the State – at her lawyer’s request. These records included, among other information, data about the numbers dialled and the date, time, duration and cost of the calls made by Ms Savotchko. The court relied on these telephone records in dismissing, in part, a claim by Ms Savotchko for exoneration from court tax.
On 22 August 2002 Ms Savotchko brought an action against the company M, seeking compensation for the non-pecuniary damage sustained as a result of disclosure of these documents, alleging that there had been an interference with her private life. The Buiucani first-instance court refused to grant her claim in a judgment of 2 April 2003. She lodged an appeal against that judgment, but it was dismissed by the Chișinău appeal court as ill-founded. Ms Savotchko then appealed on points of law, arguing that the disclosure of her telephone records had been in breach of the legislation guaranteeing the secrecy of telephone conversations and of the Access to Information Act, but the Supreme Court of Justice dismissed that appeal on 21 January 2004, upholding the previous judgments and finding that the lawyer acting for Ms Savotchko’s mother had been authorised to request the information in question.
Relying in particular on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life), Ms Savotchko alleged that the disclosure of her telephone records had infringed her right to respect for her private life and correspondence.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT
Violation of Article 8
Just satisfaction: EUR 3,000 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 2,000 (costs and expenses)
