Naming and shaming doping athletes is against EU law, says top lawyer

Publishing the name of a professional athlete online because they have broken anti-doping rules is against the EU’s privacy laws, a top EU lawyer has said.

The fresh opinion from Advocate General Dean Spielmann weighs a case taking place in Austria, where four professional athletes who have broken anti-doping rules are arguing that publication of their details online would breach the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Austrian law requires details including the athletes’ names, sporting discipline, duration of their exclusion and the reasons for that exclusion to be published on the websites of the Austrian anti-doping agency and an associated legal committee.

Spielmann said he had “serious doubts” about the need to publish all those details online, according to a court press release, on the basis that any national laws that require personal data to be published have to be proportionate.

He said publishing pseudonymized details on the internet would still deter athletes from doping and prevent offenders from circumventing doping rules, while also protecting the individual’s privacy.

The opinion is not binding but will inform the final decision at the Court of Justice of the EU.