New Sanction from the Data Protection Authority

On July 2019, the Agency of Access to Public Information (the “AAIP” after its acronym in Spanish), enforcement authority of Law No. 25,326 on Personal Data Protection, conducted an investigation, on its own initiative, over the Digital Sacramental Record from the Catholic Church after an individual formally inquired about the registration status of said database. During the investigation, the AAIP consulted the Digital Sacramental Record through its website and verified that in such site there was sacramental information on several members of the Catholic Church (that is to say, what sacraments each person had taken and at which church). Therefore, the AAIP concluded that such record was, in fact, a database in the sense of the Argentine Data Protection Law, and thus it should have been registered with the National Database Registry.

Considering such circumstances, the AAIP summoned the Archbishop’s Diocese of Buenos Aires and the Episcopal Conference of Argentina, and both entities reported to the AAIP that they were not responsible for the registry; neither had they control or supervision, whatsoever, regarding such database. They informed that the controlling entity for such registry was the San Justo Bishop’s diocese.

Even though the San Justo Bishop’s diocese promised to comply with the registration obligation, it was sanctioned by the AAIP with: (i) a fine of ARS 1,000 for committing a misdemeanor, since the San Justo Bishop’s diocese failed to submit in time and manner the information requested by the AAIP; and (ii) another fine of ARS 80,000 for the committing a serious infringement, since the San Justo Bishop’s diocese failed to register the database in question after being formally requested to do so by the AAIP.

The sanction is not yet final.