Dr Stefan Brink and Prof Niko Härting begin by discussing a forthcoming amendment to the BND Act on the occasion of an FAZ article by Thorsten Frei. For Härting and Brink, this is met with “civil rights displeasure”. They recognise numerous breaches of taboos, such as the abandonment of the separation requirement, according to which information gathering and police powers are traditionally to be kept separate in German intelligence services.
From minute (02:05) onwards, the two take a critical stance on the proposal to remove the control function of the Federal Intelligence Service from the Federal Data Protection Commissioner.
From intelligence service to transparency: From minute (17:55), Härting and Brink discuss the ECJ decision of 15 January 2026 – C-129/24, in which numerous requests under the Environmental Information Act were made against an Irish forestry company. The forestry company refused to provide information as the requests were all made under pseudonyms. Can national law require identification for environmental information requests?
Finally, from minute 28:51 onwards, the ECJ ruling of 18 December 2025 – C-422/24 is discussed. Ticket inspectors were equipped with bodycams in Stockholm’s public transport system, passengers were not informed about this. The Swedish supervisory authority therefore issued a fine on the basis of Art. 13 GDPR. Is this really a case of Art. 13 GDPR or is Art. 14 GDPR (including exemptions in paragraph 5) relevant?