Teacher prosecuted school

Work email address should disappear from homepage

Many teachers even demand to be contacted by email

(Bild: Wassermann Kerstin)

A teacher at a vocational school considered the publication of his work email address on the homepage of "his" school to be a breach of data protection. He was rebuffed by the competent authority and took his case to the Supreme Court.

A teacher saw his right to confidentiality violated by the publication of his work email address on the homepage of a vocational school. He therefore lodged a complaint against the director with the data protection authority around four years ago and was unsuccessful in early 2021.

Rebuffed by the Federal Administrative Court
However, he was not satisfied with this and challenged the decision at the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG), but it was also rejected there on July 22, 2022. Among other things, the BVwG stated that "publishing the names and official email addresses of the teaching staff on the school's website enables pupils and legal guardians to communicate quickly and easily with the teacher in the event of an incident".

"Maintaining contact in the public interest"
However, the "data protection advocate" did not want to accept this decision either and lodged an appeal with the Administrative Court (VwGH). This was rejected and the VwGH ruled on September 3 that "active contact between the school and parents is in the public interest". In addition, the teacher must reimburse the federal government 553.20 and the principal 1106 euros.

Principal pleased
The Wels lawyer Heinrich Oppitz represented the principal and concluded: "He was pleased to have been proved right. The whole thing was very stressful for him."