TV casting checks fail Finland’s journalistic-purpose exemption

Helsinki Court of Appeal has rejected a television-production subcontractor’s attempt to obtain court-register information for background checks on programme applicants under the journalistic-purpose exemption. In its unanimous decision of 7 September 2026Finlex, the court held that the concrete purpose was selecting participants for a production, not producing journalistic contentFinlex.

A Oy had requested information from Itä-Uusimaa District Court about pending and concluded cases involving 39 named peopleFinlex. It acted as an information-gathering subcontractor for a media company’s business unit and argued that background checks and participant selection formed part of the editorial process. The appeal court upheld the refusal to disclose the requested informationFinlex.

The distinction turns on the purpose of the particular processing operation. The court said neither the identity of the processor nor the nature of the eventual programme was decisive. Journalistic purposes can extend to information gathering before publication, but that does not make every preparatory processing operation journalistic. Here, criminal-case information was sought to assess applicants’ suitability and decide who would appear in the programme. Its immediate purpose was not communicating information, opinions or ideas to the public, or journalistically processing, checking or selecting information for programme contentFinlex.

The possibility that selected participants’ convictions might later be discussed in the programme did not change that assessment: such journalistic use was a separate, secondary possibility. The court therefore found that the processing was not exclusively for journalistic purposesFinlex. It also rejected the other special interests advanced on appeal as a basis for obtaining the information. Those arguments included identifying risks of discrimination and harassment in productions and avoiding financial and reputational risks.

The media company B Oy also failed in its application to intervene in its subcontractor’s appeal. The statutory intervention test requires a non-party to claim that the proceedings concern its right and show probable grounds for that claim. The court accepted that B Oy had a concrete interest in obtaining the same informationFinlex, but this case determined the subcontractor’s request, not B Oy’s own right of access. A possible precedent for B Oy’s future request was insufficient; the decision would not bind B Oy with res judicata effect.

The deadline for seeking leave to appeal and lodging an appeal is 6 November 2026Finlex.

The relevant legal framework is Tietosuojalaki (1050/2018), section 27, Regulation (EU) 2016/679, Articles 85–86, and Oikeudenkäymiskaari, chapter 18, section 8.