On June 7, the Conseil d'Etat (French supreme administrative court) overturned a decision (source document in French) of the French Data Protection Authority (Commission Nationale Informatique et Libertés, or "CNIL"), which ruled that the personal data pertaining to a car accident victim could not be transferred to the victim's heirs. During the legal proceedings to obtain damages as a result of the accident, the heirs were denied access to the victim's personal data from the victim's insurance company, and CNIL subsequently rejected the heirs' complaint. On appeal, the Conseil d'Etat ruled that the right to request damages and access information as a data subject had been properly transferred to the heirs, provided that such access was limited to the information necessary to obtain damages within the frame of the proceedings.
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