CJEU Advocate General Issues Opinion on Non-Material Damages for GDPR Breach

On October 6, 2022, the Advocate General (“AG”) of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) released an opinion in case C-300/21 to the effect that a controller or processor’s non-compliance with the GDPR does not automatically entitle data subjects to receive compensation for non-material damages pursuant to Article 82 GDPR.  According to the AG, compensation is meant to remedy the consequences caused by a breach of the GDPR, and therefore a data subject must have suffered damage that he or she can affirmatively demonstrate.