Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2025:631
Date: 2025-08-01
Language of the case: French

Request for a preliminary ruling from the Cour d’appel de Paris (France) lodged on 24 May 2024 – Criminal proceedings against HW (Case C-371/24, Comdribus) 1 Language of the case: French Referring court Cour d’appel de Paris Parties to the main proceedings HW, Ministère public Questions referred Is Article 10 of Directive 2016/680, 1 read in conjunction with Article 4(1)(a) to (c) and Article 8(1) and (2) of that directive, to be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as Article 55-1 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides for the systematic gathering of identification data (fingerprints and photographs) from persons who are suspected on one or more grounds of having committed or attempted to commit an offence? Is Article 10 of Directive 2016/680, read in conjunction with Article 4(1)(a) to (c) and Article 8(1) and (2) of that directive, to be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as Article 55-1 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure, which does not impose on the competent authority an obligation to provide, in each individual case, a sufficient statement of reasons as to why it is strictly necessary to gather identification data? Is Article 10 of Directive 2016/680, read in conjunction with Article 4(1)(a) to (c) and Article 8(1) and (2) of that directive, to be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as Article 55-1 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows the prosecution and conviction on a standalone basis of a person who has refused to consent to the gathering of identification data even though that person is not prosecuted for or convicted of the offence which formed the basis of the measure for gathering identification data? ____________ 1 The name of the present case is a fictitious name. It does not correspond to the real name of any party to the proceedings. 1 Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA (OJ 2016 L 119, p. 89).