Supreme Court rules that personal data on athletes’ doping have enhanced protection

The high court established that an infraction in this area constitutes a very serious offense.

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The Contentious Chamber of the Supreme Court has confirmed that personal data on doping of athletes have the category of data relating to health and therefore the processing, transfer or communication of such information enjoys enhanced protection. The Supreme Court ruled that an infringement in this area constitutes a very serious offence.

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The Third Section has rejected the appeal filed by the Spanish Agency for the Protection of Sports Health (AEPSAD) against a judgment of the National High Court that upheld the sanction imposed by the Data Protection Agency on the appellant for publishing data on the health of an athlete, in the context of a disciplinary proceeding that ended up being shelved.

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The athlete complained to the Data Protection Agency that the AEPSAD had disclosed data on his health when publishing his allegations in the file that had been opened against him for doping. In his response to the file, he had stated that the presence of a prohibited substance in his physiological samples was due to the accidental ingestion of a medication that his son was taking for a common illness.

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The Third Section in its ruling, presented by its president, Judge José Manuel Bandrés, analyzes the nature of the doping data.  The Court  explains that in the processing of data relating to the activities of athletes that go beyond their private sphere, such as those relating to anti-doping rule violations, “regardless of their concept as data included in the category of health data, is governed by European Union legislation and national regulations on the protection of personal data, and the parties responsible for data processing – whether public authorities or private entities – must reconcile the freedom of information guaranteed by Article 20 of the Spanish Constitution with the fundamental right to personal and family privacy and to one’s own image, protected by Article 18 of our Basic Law”..

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The Chamber considers that the National Court made an adequate and reasonable interpretation of the term “health-related data” referred to in article 7.3 of the Organic Law on Data Protection, as well as of the European Union legislation, of the state regulations on the protection of personal data and of the national and international anti-doping regulations.

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For the court, the purpose of these regulations is “to ensure fairness and equality in sports competitions, associated with the concept of fair play, to promote the health of athletes, and to protect and safeguard the community good of public health, insofar as these data, which concern the physiological or genetic conditions, or the state of physical or mental health of the athletes, may have significantly negative repercussions for the persons concerned”.

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Therefore, it considers that the AEPSD committed a very serious infringement when it disclosed through its website information on the decision of the Administrative Court of Sport that contained information on the state of health of the athlete and his minor son.

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On the other hand, the Court reproduces the argument of the judgment of the Audiencia Nacional that it is about health data of the athlete. “without prejudice to the fact that in the fight against doping, the determination of the existence of infractions and their publicity is regulated in detail in order to avoid the distortion of competitions and, ultimately, to try to ensure that the game is fair, but it does not follow from such rules that data protection infringements do not have the qualification of seriousness that corresponds to the special categories of data that are particularly protected, such as health data”.

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