A non-binding opinion now before the Court of Justice would treat a structured baptismal register as a GDPR filing system and would reject a readable strike-through as erasure if the national court finds no justification for keeping the name.
IN BRIEF: On 1 October 2026, Advocate General Laila Medina proposed in Case C-12/25 Bisdom Gent that the right to erasure under Regulation (EU) 2016/679 may in principle apply to personal data in baptismal registers, and that striking through data while leaving them legible does not constitute erasure, according to Court of Justice press release No 139/26.
On 1 October 2026 in Luxembourg, Advocate General Laila Medina proposed that the right to erasure under the General Data Protection Regulation may, in principle, apply to personal data contained in baptismal registers. The proposal is not a ruling. Press release No 139/26 states that the Advocate General’s Opinion is not binding on the Court of Justice, that the Judges are now beginning their deliberations in Case C-12/25 | Bisdom Gent, and that judgment will be given at a later date.
The facts, as the Communications Directorate presents them from the case file, are narrow. A Belgian national who had been baptised as a Catholic as a child asked the Diocese of Ghent to delete any reference to him from all physical or digital register or archive. He relied on Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016. The Diocese recorded his departure from the Church, striking through his personal data but keeping them in a legible form. Dissatisfied, he lodged a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority, which ordered the Diocese to erase his personal data. The Diocese challenged that decision before a Belgian court. The court referred questions of interpretation to the Court of Justice. The press release does not name the complainant. Neither the Court of Justice nor the General Court decides the national dispute.
Medina confirms, first, that the GDPR applies. The baptismal register contains a “structured” set of personal data of the baptised individuals and hence constitutes filing systems within the meaning of Article 4(6). The footnote lists the names of the baptized, date and place of birth, family links, and religious beliefs. “The autonomy of churches and religious organisations does not call this conclusion into question.” Storage and, where appropriate, retrieval and use “must be in line with the GDPR.”
The filing-system finding is the point a controller should not blur with the sacrament. On this reading, a structured set of names, dates, family links and belief data sits inside the Regulation even when the controller is a church. Institutional autonomy is not, in the Opinion, a route out of the instrument. The press release does not apply that sentence to commercial membership files.
The second step separates earlier processing from a later objection. Medina considers that processing of the complainant’s personal data by the Church, before the withdrawal request, could be regarded as lawful under Article 6(1)(f) even absent express consent. That person may nevertheless, in principle, request erasure of those data from the baptismal register under Article 17(1)(c) by formally objecting to the processing. The Church may continue only if it demonstrates compelling legitimate grounds under Article 21(1).
Ensuring the correct administration of the sacraments, including baptism, can be regarded as such a ground. The footnote states that for the Roman Catholic Church baptism is a sacrament of particular significance, can be administered only once, and that retention is necessary to prevent believers from being baptised twice. The ground is not self-executing. Necessity must still be assessed, and so must whether the Church’s interest takes precedence over the rights and freedoms of the person concerned. “It is for the national court to make that complex case-by-case assessment.”
The balance is between two sets of interests the press release calls worthy of significant protection in the EU legal order. On one side: the complainant’s right to respect for private and family life, his right to protection of personal data, and his freedom of thought, conscience and religion. On the other: the autonomy of the Church and its freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The exercise cannot be carried out in the abstract. The national court should take into account the reasons for the request and the possible impact of a refusal. Medina notes that “the continued retention of personal data by a religious community from which a person wishes to dissociate himself may affect that person’s right to self-determination and, in particular circumstances, cause emotional distress.”
A third route remains if those grounds fail. The Church may still process the data for archiving purposes in the public interest or historical research under Article 17(3)(d) and Article 89(1). The conditions are cumulative. Processing must be necessary for those purposes, comply with the safeguards laid down in EU and national law, and respect data minimisation — data processed as little as possible and only to the extent needed. Examination falls to the national court. An activity of archiving, Medina stresses, must serve society as a whole, be based on a legal obligation to hold records, and involve some form of access by public authorities or the general public. Historical research is mainly intended to address activities such as those carried out by academic or research organizations, which may ultimately benefit society as a whole. Internal sacramental bookkeeping is not, on this reading, automatically archiving or historical research.
If the national court decides that further processing is not justified, the Diocese’s method fails. Merely striking through personal data while leaving them legible, and adding an annotation concerning the person’s departure from the Church, “does not constitute erasure under the GDPR.” “The data must be rendered illegible to the extent necessary to ensure that the person is no longer identified or easily identifiable,” while information that a baptism took place at a given place and time may be retained. Physical removal of pages is not required. Appropriate measures may conceal the relevant data and leave other information intact.
The release is an unofficial document for media use, not binding on the Court of Justice. The full text of the Opinion is published on the CURIA website on the day of delivery. Press contact is Jacques René Zammit, (+352) 4303 3355. What is live for a founder or buyer is the proposed test, not a completed Luxembourg erasure order: a structured baptismal register as a filing system, Article 17 reachable by formal objection, and a readable strike-through rejected as erasure if continued processing is not justified. The national court still has to run the compelling-grounds and archiving tests. A later judgment can depart from the Opinion.
WHY IT MATTERS: Any controller that treats a visible annotation as deletion is on the wrong side of the test Medina proposes, if the national court finds no compelling ground and no qualifying archive or research purpose. The Opinion leaves both exemptions open and leaves the balance to the referring court; it does not itself order the Diocese of Ghent to erase the entry.
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