In Germany there have been interesting recent decisions and trends across the country. In this article we discuss the latest news on e-marketing consent rules, and give an overview on recent developments in German employee data protection law, as well as a few highlights relating to data subjects’ access rights requests.

E-marketing consent – a longstanding favourite

Businesses need to pay special attention to the strict consent rules around e-marketing: It is not a particularly new development that German authorities and courts impose strict requirements for obtaining consent in an e-marketing context on both B2C and B2B levels: In summary, according to Section 7 of the Unfair Competition Act (UWG), sending marketing messages without the prior express consent of the addressees is not permitted. In order to constitute a valid legal basis, consent must meet the requirements of Articles 6 (1) (a) and 7 GDPR, thus, consent must be freely given and declared in a manner that is clearly distinguishable from other matters, in an intelligible and easily accessible form. To verify the intention of the data subject, the double-opt in procedure should be used, meaning a first opt-in should be verified via email confirmation or similar mechanism. If the requirements are not observed, there is a high practical risk of complaints, cease-and-desist letters, or court proceedings. In addition, this also constitutes a violation of data protection law when processing data without the proper legal basis (i.e. consent).