A recent case, decided by the Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali (Italian Data Protection Authority) on 23 October 2025, has caused quite a stir in the media, due to the intertwining of legal issues and political implications. As will be better explained henceforth, with his decision the Garante sanctioned the RAI television broadcaster for violation of privacy legislation, in relation to the dissemination of the audio recording of a private conversation that took place between what was then the Minister of Cultural Heritage and his wife (hereinafter also referred to as the ‘Report case‘).

The case has been and is still widely debated in Italy, also because of the aftermath of the controversy it triggered between a well-known television programme of investigative journalism, Report, and some members of the Garante’s panel. The same Report journalists, in fact, spread the news of a meeting between one of the members of the Garante’s panel and a leading politician, the president of the relative majority party, which took place the very day before the Garante’s decision. According to the thesis of the Report journalists, that meeting was held with the aim of ensuring that the member of the collegium in question consulted in advance with the representative of the majority party, in order to obtain her opinion on how he should vote in the meeting of the collegium the following day that would deliberate on the ‘Report case’. This is a thesis which, as mentioned, is supported by the Report journalists but which is not substantiated as to what was discussed during the meeting.

What we are interested in highlighting here is how the Report case constitutes an example of the tension – always present but here particularly exacerbated – between the protection of privacy and the public’s interest in knowledge of facts concerning the exercise of their functions by persons holding political office.

The politicisation of the case derives from the fact that it concerns the issue, in itself very sensitive, of identifying the boundary between the private and public life of persons exposed to public scrutiny and judgement, through journalistic activity, because of the office held.

The case was submitted to the Garante’s scrutiny because during an episode of the programme Report in the summer of 2024, an audio recording was aired of a conversation between a (at the time of the facts) minister of the Italian Republic and his wife, in which, among other things, the latter urged her husband not to proceed with the appointment of a businesswoman, with whom the minister had confessed to his wife that he was having a love affair – a fact which later became public knowledge following an interview given by the minister himself – to a position as a consultant in the ministry he headed. The conversation with his wife was recorded by the Minister because he was urged to do so by the businesswoman herself, to whom the audio was sent. The audio recording was then given to the Report journalists, who broadcast excerpts during the programme’s episode.

In its decision of 23 October 2025, the Garante considered that the processing of personal data carried out by Report through the broadcast of the audio recording exceeded the limits of the exemption of the legitimate exercise of the right to report news and therefore imposed a sanction of EUR 150,000 on the broadcaster.

As is well known, exceptions to the application of the GDPR regulations are provided for in Recital 153 and Article 85 of the GDPR itself. The latter delegates to the Member States the task of specifically providing for the condition for the application of the exceptions linked to the exercise of journalistic activity. In this regard, Italy has provided for the specific discipline with the provisions of Articles 136 and 137 of the Privacy Code which, in a nutshell, bind the assessment of the existence of the exemption in favour of the exercise of journalistic activity to the compliance with the “Deontological Rules on the Processing of Personal Data in the Exercise of Journalistic Activity” approved by the Garante with the resolution of 29 November 2018 and, in particular, with Article 6 of said Rules.

Of relevance in the Report case is Article 6 of the Deontological Rules, which makes it explicit that the disclosure of personal data does not lead to a breach of privacy regulations only if ‘it is indispensable on account of the originality of the fact or of the description of the particular manner in which it took place, as well as of the qualification of the protagonists‘. According to the Garante, this provision, labelled “essentiality of the information”, has, therefore, “correlated the character of essentiality to the character of indispensability“, a character which, according to the Garante, is completely absent in the Report case, in particular because of the enhanced protection enjoyed by personal data when, as in the case of the audio recording broadcast by Report, they are also expressive of the right to freedom and secrecy of communications, as provided for by Article 15 of the Constitution and which, for this reason, enjoy enhanced protection.

In actual facts, the Garante does not clearly explain how the character of indispensability is to be assessed, except by way of a repeated reference to the particular protection to be granted to private correspondence and to the lack of an imperative social need for direct knowledge (by listening) of the conversation, in itself private and moreover snatched by a third party through a form of coercion.

The problem arises because the facts underlying the contested Report programme were at the time – during the summer of 2024 – the subject of wide publicity and discussion in all the national media and, therefore, it is understandable that a programme of investigative journalism, having come into possession of a ‘burning’ document, would want to make it heard, in order to arouse the greatest possible interest in its audience and allow it to form a direct opinion of the facts. Those who choose to engage in political activity, especially in national apex roles, know that they have to bear an extra burden of transparency or, if you like, have to accept a sensitive limitation of their privacy. On the other hand, there is no doubt that even public figures enjoy a sphere of protection, however restricted, of their private sphere and, in the present case, even persons who did not hold public office, such as the Minister’s wife, were involved.

CONCLUSIONS

In my opinion, the balancing act in a case such as this is particularly difficult and enumerating an objective criterion is a daunting task, always avoiding the risk of trespassing into forms of censorship of free speech and control of political power through journalistic activity, which are necessary and valuable in a democratic society. At the same time, it can be considered that listening to the conversation in question – as the journalists could report the fact itself without the aid of it – was not a necessary safeguard for the public to be fully informed, always having to guard against forms of voyeurism or gossip for their own sake and not adding anything more to what had already been made known. To be clear, the conversation between the minister and his wife was not a telephone interception, but a recording made without the knowledge of one of the two individuals having a discussion, the minister’s wife, prearranged so that it could then be listened to by the businesswoman romantically involved with the minister.

When in doubt, I believe that the application of the privacy legislation should favour the right to report the news, when balancing opposing rights. On the other hand, the balance should be more in favour of the right to report the news, the greater the public exposure of the person to whom the news refers, since even the closest relatives must accept to ‘suffer’ such exposure as a consequence. This at least when the facts narrated are related to the public office held.