Compensation for non-material damage under Article 82 GDPR: A review of Case C-300/21

The Court of Justice of the European Union delivered a decision in Case C-300/21 to address three questions on how to compensate a data subject for the non-material damage suffered from a violation of GDPR provisions. First, infringement by itself does not give rise to compensation. Actual damage must be demonstrated by the data subject. Second, the right to compensation is not limited to non-material damage that reaches a certain threshold of seriousness. Third, since the GDPR does not provide an explicit guideline for assessing damages, it falls to Member States to establish such a criterion. The criterion, nevertheless, must comply with the principle of equivalence and effectiveness. The judgment, together with the Advocate General's opinion, touches upon several fundamental issues at the intersection of risk, harm and tort damage.