Tokens: 5
.
Under
Finnish
law
,
information
on
the
taxable
income
and
assets
of
taxpayers
is
public.[1
]
In
2002
the
applicant
companies
published
a
certain
amount
of
such
information
.
In
April
2003
the
Data
Protection
Ombudsman
,
invoking
taxpayers
’
privacy
interests
,
requested
that
the
Data
Protection
Board
restrain
the
applicant
companies
from
publishing
the
taxation
data
.
The
request
was
dismissed
on
the
grounds
that
the
applicant
companies
were
engaged
in
journalism
and
so
were
entitled
to
a
derogation
from
restrictions
provided
by
law
on
data
processing.[2
]
In
February
2007
the
Supreme
Administrative
Court
,
examining
the
case
,
sought
a
preliminary
ruling
from
the
Court
of
Justice
of
the
European
Union
(
CJEU
)
on
the
interpretation
of
the
EU
Data
Protection
Directive[3
]
,
which
also
governed
the
impugned
data
processing
.
In
December
2008
the
CJEU
ruled
that
activities
related
to
data
processing
from
documents
in
the
public
domain
could
be
classified
as
“
journalistic
activities
”
if
their
object
was
to
disclose
to
the
public
information
,
opinions
or
ideas
,
irrespective
of
the
medium
used
to
transmit
them
.
In
September
2009
the
Supreme
Administrative
Court
concluded
that
the
publication
of
the
whole
database
could
not
be
regarded
as
journalistic
activity
,
and
directed
the
Data
Protection
Board
to
forbid
the
applicant
companies
from
publishing
such
data
.
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