Article 12 - Directories of subscribers
3 preliminary rulingsJudgment of 27 Oct 2022, C-129/21 (Proximus) 
Article 12(2) of Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector, as amended by Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009, read in conjunction with point (f) of the second paragraph of Article 2 of that directive and with Article 95 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 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 and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), must be interpreted as meaning that ‘consent’ within the meaning of Article 4(11) of that regulation is required from the subscriber of a telephone service operator in order for the personal data of that subscriber to be included in publicly available telephone directories and directory enquiry services published by providers other than that operator, and that that consent may be provided to that operator or to one of those providers.
Judgment of 15 Mar 2017, C-536/15 (Tele2)
Article 25(2) of Directive 2002/22/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 March 2002 on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic communications networks and services (Universal Service Directive), as amended by Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009, must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of ‘requests’ in that article, covers also requests made by an undertaking, established in a Member State other than that in which the undertakings which assign telephone numbers to subscribers are established, which requests the relevant information possessed by those undertakings in order to provide publicly available telephone directory enquiry services and directories in that Member State and/or in other Member States.
Article 25(2) of Directive 2002/22, as amended by Directive 2009/136, must be interpreted as precluding an undertaking which assigns telephone numbers to subscribers, and which is obliged under national legislation to request those subscribers’ consent to the use of data relating to them for the purposes of supplying directory enquiry services and directories, from differentiating in the request for those subscribers’ consent to that use according to the Member State in which the undertakings requesting the information referred to in that provision provide those services.
Judgment of 5 May 2011, C-543/09 (Deutsche Telekom)
Article 25(2) of Directive 2002/22/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 March 2002 on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic communications networks and services (Universal Service Directive) must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which undertakings assigning telephone numbers to end-users must make available to undertakings whose activity consists in providing publicly available directory enquiry services and directories not only data relating to their own subscribers but also data in their possession relating to subscribers of third-party undertakings.
Article 12 of Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications) must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which an undertaking publishing public directories must pass personal data in its possession relating to subscribers of other telephone service providers to a third-party undertaking whose activity consists in publishing a printed or electronic public directory or making such directories obtainable through directory enquiry services, and under which the passing on of those data is not conditional on renewed consent from the subscribers, provided, however, that those subscribers have been informed, before the first inclusion of their data in a public directory, of the purpose of that directory and of the fact that those data could be communicated to another telephone service provider and that it is guaranteed that those data will not, once passed on, be used for purposes other than those for which they were collected with a view to their first publication.
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