Personal Data Protection and Public Disclosure of Data Relating to Taxpayers Debtors to the Portuguese Tax Authority

To fulfill its duties related to the management and collection of taxes, the Portuguese Tax Authority has access to a variety of taxpayers’ personal data of personal, financial, professional, and family nature, among others. In order to protect the privacy of taxpayers, this entity is, according to the General Tax Law, obliged to keep confidential these data. This confidentiality obligation is in accordance with the legal rules of personal data’s protection, provided by the General Regulation on the Protection of Personal Data and the Personal Data Protection Act in force in the Portuguese legal system. However, the possibility of publicly disclosing the data of individual and collective taxpayers whose tax situation has not been regularized is currently determined in the law as a possibility that does not infringe the aforementioned obligation of confidentiality. In this paper, we will try to understand if this possibility conflicts with the principles and values pursued by the rules on the protection of personal data, distinguishing between business and non-business taxpayers, and understanding the reasons of public interest, transparency and the safeguarding of commercial and competitive interests that underlie the publication of personal data of those taxpayers.