Tribunale di Roma – N. R.G. 54031/2025

18 February 2026

Lde:

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A court annulled a DPA’s decision imposing a €150,000 fine on a public broadcaster after airing a private former Minister’s private conversation. The court concluded that public interest in airing the conversation overrode the former Minister’s right to privacy.

== English Summary ==

=== Facts ===
In December 2024, the investigative television programme Report, by the national broadcaster Rai, aired a segment addressing a political controversy involving then-Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano. The controversy involved the provisional appointment of the Minister’s affair partner for a role of public relevance, then withdrawn.

The programme shared excerpts of a private telephone conversation between Sangiuliano and his wife requesting to withdraw the appointment, as well as references to other communications with ministry officials. The broadcast suggested that personal considerations had influenced the decision not to proceed with the appointment.

Following the broadcast, the DPA initiated proceedings against Rai. In October 2025, it imposed an administrative fine of €150,000 and ordered Rai to cease further processing of the audio recording, including its storage in its archives. The DPA held that the dissemination of the private conversation exceeded what was necessary for journalistic purposes and violated data protection principles, in particular the requirement of essentiality of information.

Rai challenged the decision, arguing that the broadcast pursued a legitimate public interest and complied with the journalistic exemption under data protection law.

=== Holding ===
The court annulled the DPA’s decision, holding that the broadcast fell within the legitimate exercise of investigative journalism and respected the proper balance between privacy and freedom of information.

From a privacy perspective, the court emphasised that data protection rules do not prohibit the dissemination of personal data as such, but require a contextual assessment of whether the disclosure is essential to inform the public about matters of genuine public interest. In this case, the court found that the private conversation was not used to berate the Minister’s personal life, but to demonstrate, through unmediated evidence, the concrete influence of private relationships in the institutional context. The disclosure therefore had the function of enabling the public to assess the integrity and independence of public figures.

The court stressed that investigative journalism in particular enjoys enhanced protection when it presents facts in their original form in order to avoid suspicion of manipulation or selective reconstruction. In circumstances where political accountability is at stake, reproducing primary material may be necessary to convey the full scope of the events. The court concluded that the excerpts broadcast by Report were strictly limited to what was indispensable, proportionate to the aim pursued, and closely connected to an issue of undeniable public relevance.

The judgment, additionally, briefly addressed procedural arguments, noting, without this being decisive, that the DPA’s decision had been adopted outside the applicable time limits, reinforcing the conclusion that the measure could not stand.

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== English Machine Translation of the Decision ==
The decision below is a machine translation of the Italian original. Please refer to the Italian original for more details.

<pre>
No. R.G. 54031/2025

ORDINARY COURT of ROME

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL IMMIGRATION SECTION

The Court, sitting as a single judge, represented by Judge Corrado Bile, has issued the

following

JUDGMENT

Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A., represented by the Director of the Legal and Corporate Affairs Department,
Francesco Spadafora, represented and defended by Claudio Mangiafico and Francesco

Cordova;

– appellant –
AUTHORITY FOR THE PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA, represented by its

President in office, represented and defended by the State Attorney General;

– defendant –

In Fact

By appeal filed on November 21, 2025, Rai – Radiotelevisione Italiana S.p.A. has

challenged Order No. 621 of October 23, 2025, by which the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) sanctioned the television program “Report” for violating data protection legislation.

On December 8, 2024, Report broadcast the program “Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny,”

regarding the case involving Dr. Gennaro Sangiuliano, Minister of Culture, and
Dr. Maria Rosaria Boccia. During the program, excerpts of a private conversation

between the Minister and his wife, Federica Corsini, were broadcast. The broadcast of this conversation was

sanctioned by the Authority with the challenged order.

The affair, in particular, arose from the decision not to appoint Dr. Boccia
as a consultant to the Ministry of Culture and from her subsequent publication of

documents aimed at demonstrating her active role in institutional activities. Minister Sangiuliano subsequently confirmed that the appointment of Dr. Boccia,

on a voluntary basis, had initially been considered, but then shelved to avoid a potential
conflict of interest related to her business activities. However, Dr. Boccia had

disputed this version, arguing that the failure to appoint her was due to a “female voice”

that had forced the Minister to cancel the consultancy contract already signed.

The affair had taken on political overtones, with opposition parties

calling for the Minister’s resignation. To clarify the situation, Dr. Sangiuliano had given

an interview to TG1 in which he admitted to having had a romantic relationship with

Dr. Boccia, which ended between July and August 2024. He also stated that Boccia’s failure to
appoint her was due to a personal and professional conflict of interest.

Subsequently, Dr. Boccia gave interviews to the newspaper La Stampa and

the broadcaster La7, during which she accused the Minister of having made decisions
imposed on him by others, without naming names, and stated that: “This truth is missing many women

who we are not mentioning.”

Journalist Luca Bertazzoni, author of the “Report” report, had obtained material

regarding the events of August 9, 2024, including the audio recording of the private conversation between the
Minister and his wife.

Specifically, the audio of the conversation showed the Minister confessing his infidelity to his

wife, who ordered him to revoke any appointments held by Dr. Boccia, threatening to

inform the Ministry’s Chief of Staff if he failed to revoke her appointment. Furthermore, the report
included a WhatsApp message dated August 9, 2024, in which the Minister informed the Chief of Staff

that he was suspending the appointment process until the end of August.

On December 13, 2024, RAI received two letters from the Italian Data Protection Authority (with the subject line “request for

information regarding the dissemination of the content of telephone conversations between

Dr. Sangiuliano and Dr. Federica Corsini”) in which the Authority requested that it provide

observations regarding the dissemination of private conversations between Sangiuliano and his
wife, with particular regard to the principle of essentiality of the information.

In response, RAI argued that the release of the audio was “functional” to clarify the facts and

allow the public to understand how the personal requests of the Minister’s wife
had influenced its institutional decisions.

However, the Italian Data Protection Authority rejected RAI’s argument and adopted a disciplinary measure,

imposing a ban on further processing of the personal data contained in the audio fragments of the

conversation and imposing a fine of €150,000. The appellant contested the legitimacy of the contested measure, raising, in summary, the
following grounds for appeal:

1. late conclusion of the administrative disciplinary procedure, in violation of the

peremptory deadline of 9 months set forth in Article 143 of the Privacy Code and Regulation No.

2/2019 of the Italian Data Protection Authority;

2. Lack of reasoning and incorrect application of the principle of essentiality of information,

with particular reference to the dissemination of the audio of the conversation

between Sangiuliano and Corsini, deemed essential for the completeness of the journalistic
investigation conducted by Report;

3. Disproportionate financial penalty imposed, deemed abnormal compared to previous

similar ones and in violation of the principle of proportionality;
4. Illegitimacy of the ban on storing the service in the RAI historical archive, in breach

of the Consolidated Law on Audiovisual Media Services and the National Service Contract

between the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy;

5. Failure to examine the exculpatory circumstance referred to in Article 9, letter a). e) of the GDPR, since the personal data
being processed would have been manifestly made public by the data subject,

Gennaro Sangiuliano, during the interview given to TG1 on September 4, 2024.

The appellant therefore requested the following conclusions: “Preliminarily: 1)
suspend – without the other party being heard or after convening the parties – the enforceability of the

contested provision (Provision No. 621 of the Italian Data Protection Authority of October 23, 2025) for the reasons

explained in the narrative. 2) annul the Provision No. 621 of the Italian Data Protection Authority of October 23, 2025 for the reasons better explained in the narrative. 3) annul or, in the further

alternative rank, reduce the financial penalty imposed on RAI; 4) annul the ban on further

processing through the historical archive of personal data contained in the audio fragments

of the conversation broadcast during the episode of “Report” on December 8, 2024.

The Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) appeared in court, arguing that the grounds for appeal were unfounded.

Regarding the form, it contested the alleged lateness of the decision, invoking the following arguments:

First, the appellant erred in identifying the deadlines for the conclusion of the

proceedings by classifying the initiatives of Sangiuliano and Corsini as complaints. In this case, in fact, the rules applicable to proceedings initiated following a report should not have been applied,

but rather those applicable to proceedings initiated following a report, which benefit from the longer deadline of 18 months (rather than 9 months). This would be apparent, upon closer inspection, from the wording

of the decision itself, which, in its preamble, contains the following wording: “CONSIDERING the

report…”.
Furthermore, regarding the start of the deadline, Article 144 establishes that: “For proceedings initiated

ex officio and those relating to reports pursuant to Article 144 of the Code, the deadline runs

from the date the proceedings are initiated in accordance with Article 12 of the

Garante Regulation No. 1/2019,” i.e., from the notice of initiation of the proceedings, which, in this case, was
issued on April 14, 2025.

In any case, even if the parties’ initiative were classified as a complaint, the measure

would still be timely, taking into account the suspension periods due to the
holiday period and the time required to submit written defenses, in accordance with

the provisions of Article 6 of Internal Regulation No. 2/2019.

Finally, the defense counsel for the Italian Competition Authority argued that, regardless of the issue of untimeliness, the mere expiration of the deadline would not, in itself, constitute grounds for annulment of the
provision. In support of this argument, the defendant invoked the principles expressed by the

Court of Justice of the European Union in its ruling of January 30, 2025, regarding the nature and

running of time limits for proceedings under the jurisdiction of the Italian Competition Authority (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato) regarding unfair commercial practices.
On this point, it recalled that European judges have emphasized the need to strike a balance

between opposing needs: that of ensuring effective protection of Community

interests through the establishment of an effective and efficient sanctioning system, and that
of ensuring the effective exercise of the right of defense for those involved. From this perspective,

subordinating the exercise of repressive powers to inflexible time limits would be difficult to reconcile with the

need to ensure effective protection, especially in the face of particularly complex investigations.

Therefore, the argument that the time limits set forth in Article 143 of the Privacy Code
are peremptory in nature should be rejected, as such an interpretation would conflict with the obligation of

Member States to adopt and ensure the implementation of a system of effective and dissuasive sanctions.

Regarding the substantive complaints, the defendant reiterated that by choosing to reproduce the
private conversations between Sangiuliano and Corsini, the program violated the principle of

materiality of information established by Article 6 of the resolution of November 29, 2018. Specifically, he stated that: “the Authority did not intend to deprive the news itself of its legality,

on which no assessment is expressed, but rather censured and sanctioned the manner in which
the news itself was disclosed to the public, in order to sensationalize it.”

In law

For reasons of expediency, the Court deems it appropriate to proceed with a separate discussion of the

procedural aspects and those pertaining to the merits of the case, applying the principle of the so-called “principle of the law.” “more liquid” reasoning, according to which the case can be decided based on the issue deemed most easily resolved,
even if logically subordinate, without the need to first examine the others.

To safeguard the needs of procedural economy and speed of judgment, an interpretative approach is required

that involves verifying the solutions in terms of their operational impact rather than
that of their logical and systematic coherence, and replaces the issue of evidence with that of the order

of the issues to be addressed pursuant to Article 276 of the Code of Civil Procedure (ex multis, Supreme Court, Labour Section, May 20, 2020, no.

9309).

1. Investigative Journalism and the Protection of Privacy: The Essentiality of Information

In general, it can be observed that, as with all constitutional freedoms, the freedom of expression is also subject to the limits explicitly stated in the positive law as well as

those derived from other constitutional provisions.

This is what the Constitutional Court has stated, according to which “substantial limitations on this freedom

cannot be imposed except by law (absolute reserve of law) and must be based
on constitutional precepts and principles, whether they are explicitly stated in the Constitutional

Charter or can be derived from it through the rigorous application of the rules

of legal interpretation” (ruling of February 4, 1965, no. 9).

The Court has emphasized that “the guarantee of inviolable human rights would become illusory for
all if each person could exercise them outside the scope of the law, civil regulation, and reasonable

custom. Even primary and fundamental rights (such as, perhaps, the highest, that enshrined in

Article 21 of the Constitution) must be balanced with the demands of a tolerable
coexistence” (July 5, 1971, No. 168).

The need for substantial limitations on this freedom to be established by law (an absolute reserve of

law) and to be based on constitutional precepts and principles has been reiterated in many rulings,

sometimes with interesting clarifications such as that according to which “freedom of expression cannot be limited except by legislative provisions aimed

at the protection of other goods and interests protected by the constitution” (Judgment of November 28,
1968, No. 120).

That said, it is worth recalling the fundamental ruling of the Court of Cassation of October 18,

1984, No. 5259, regarding the relationship between freedom of thought (with its corollary of the right and duty to
inform and be informed) and the protection of honor and reputation; It is now undisputed that in

balancing these opposing prerogatives, both of which are protected by the Constitution, the right to

news reporting can prevail provided that the information disseminated meets the following requirements:

a) objective, or even merely putative, truth, provided it is the result of serious and diligent research
(which does not exist when, although the individual facts reported are true, other facts are maliciously or even merely negligently concealed, so closely related to the first as to completely change their

meaning; or when the reported facts are accompanied by emotional stimulation or by
innuendos, juxtapositions, insinuations, allusions, or sophisms objectively capable of creating distorted representations of objective reality in the mind

of the reader/listener); b) the existence of a public interest in the information, so-called relevance (Cass. Civil, December 15, 2004, no. 23366); c) presentation and

evaluation of the facts in an appropriate and restrained manner (so-called restraint), so that the
writing does not exceed the intended informative purpose, is characterized by calm objectivity, excluding

any preconceived derogatory intent, and is drafted in compliance with a minimum standard of

dignity to which every human being is entitled, regardless of the reprehensible nature of the conduct

attributable to them (Cass. October 18, 1984, no. 5259).

The rationale for the right to report, itself an expression of Article 21 of the Constitution, is therefore based on the

correlation between fact and news and on the realization of the public interest in information, in the

concurrence of the other two requirements of restraint and relevance.

In this case, it is necessary to start from the observation that the appellant is a broadcaster that

concerns journalism, in its specific form of investigative journalism, defined by the

Court of Cassation as the “highest and noblest expression of information activity” (Cass., Third Civil Section, May 6, 2010, no. 16236).

The same ruling clarifies that: “With this type of journalism, in fact, the purpose of this activity is better achieved: the provision of intellectual labor aimed at gathering, commenting on, and processing news intended to be the subject of interpersonal communication through the media, to encourage citizens to acquire knowledge of worthy issues, for their public relevance.” Therefore, in investigative journalism, the acquisition of news occurs “autonomously,”

“directly” and “actively” by the professional, and is not mediated by external sources
through the “passive” receipt of information.

The importance of investigative journalism, which is also an expression of the inalienable and

fundamental right to freedom of information and criticism, a corollary of Article 21 of the Constitution (according to which
“everyone has the right to freely express their thoughts through speech, writing, and any

other means of dissemination”) as well as of Professional Law No. 69 of 1963, art. 2 (dedicated to the

journalism ethics within the framework of the Journalism Profession), has been,

among other things, recognized by the Strasbourg Court (which, in particular, with its ruling of March 27, 1996,
recognized both the right to freely seek news and the need to protect journalistic sources

) and by the Journalist’s Charter of Duties (signed in Rome on July 8, 1993 by the Fnsi and

the National Order of Journalists), which, among its guiding principles, states that “the
journalist must respect, cultivate, and defend all citizens’ right to information; for

this reason, he or she seeks and disseminates any news or information he or she deems to be of public interest, respecting

truth and with the greatest possible accuracy. Journalists seek and disseminate news of

public interest despite any obstacles that may be placed in the way of their work and make every
effort to ensure that citizens have access to and control over public documents. A journalist’s responsibility

towards citizens always prevails over any other. A journalist

can never subordinate it to the interests of others, particularly those of the publisher, the government, or

other state bodies.

In this context, investigative journalism, as a species, must be recognized with broad legal protection.

This implies, in relation to the regulatory limits of information activity,

as a genus, already identified by supreme court case law, a less rigorous and in any case
different application of the reliability of the source (on which, among others, Supreme Court ruling no. 1205/2007),

without prejudice to the limits of the public interest in the news (among others, Supreme Court ruling no. 7261/2008), and of

consistent language, inspired by formal correctness of presentation (on this point, among others,

Supreme Court ruling no. 2271/2005); Indeed, it is clear that in investigative journalism, the need to
evaluate the reliability and veracity of the source of the news disappears. Journalists, in “drawing” information directly, must be guided primarily by the ethical and

deontological criteria of their professional activity, as mentioned, among other things, in the regulations pursuant to Law No.
69 of 1963 and in the aforementioned Charter of Duties (with particular reference to the Preamble).

It follows that this method of reporting does not violate the honor and

prestige of legal entities, with the associated social discredit, if the following are met: an objective interest in raising public awareness of socially relevant facts and events; the use of

non-offensive language; and the avoidance of professional integrity.
Furthermore, investigative journalism is considered legitimately practiced when, in addition to respecting the

person and their dignity, it does not violate their privacy, as generally established by the rules of ethics

regarding the processing of personal data in the exercise of journalistic activity (pursuant to

Law No. 675 of December 31, 1996, Art. 25; Legislative Decree No. 467 of 2001, Art. 20; and Legislative Decree No. 196
of 2003, Art. 12).

Therefore, a comprehensive regulatory framework emerges that requires a balance between

opposing needs.

In this regard, it should be noted that Article Article 1 of the Constitution, paragraph 2, in stating that “sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it in the forms and within the limits of the Constitution,” presupposes as an essential condition for the full, legitimate, and correct exercise of this sovereignty that it be realized through all democratic instruments (Article 1 of the Constitution, paragraph 1),

provided for this purpose by the legal system, among which a prominent place and function is given to the activity of
information; that is, the sovereignty of the people is also guaranteed through the free

formation of public opinion.

Moreover, the legislator has placed reputation and privacy within the ambit of “exceptions” to the

general principle of information protection. Article 137, paragraph 3, of the Privacy Code establishes
that “In the event of dissemination or communication of data for the purposes referred to in Article 136 (journalistic

purposes), the limits of the right to report remain in place to protect the rights referred to in Article 1,

paragraph 2, of the Regulation and Article 1 of this Code, and in particular, that of

the materiality of the information regarding facts of public interest.”

Article 6 of the Rules of Ethics relating to the Processing of Personal Data in the Exercise

of Journalistic Activities published pursuant to Article 20, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree No. 10 of August 10, 2018, provides: 101,

provides that “The disclosure of news of significant public or social interest does not conflict with

respect for privacy when the information, even detailed, is indispensable due to
the originality of the fact or the description of the specific ways in which it occurred,

as well as the qualifications of the protagonists.”

The Supreme Court has affirmed that, in addition to the need not to violate the right to

privacy, the public interest in the dissemination of news (see Cass. No. 4477
of 2021) and, more generally, the right to information, which underpins the rules guaranteeing

the full and effective exercise of freedom of the press (Article 21 of the Constitution).

1
Placed within the framework of inviolable human rights, freedom of the press has been significantly defined
by the Constitutional Court as “the cornerstone of the democratic order” (ruling of April 2, 1969, no. 84). Furthermore, according to the Court, the limits of the essentiality of information, which limit the possibility

of disseminating personal data in the exercise of journalistic activity, entail the duty to
avoid references to facts inherent in the private lives of individuals, only if they are not

relevant to the news to which they refer and only if they are completely devoid of public interest

(Civil Cassation, Section VI, 11/08/2021, no. 22741).

Having outlined the applicable regulatory framework, the content of the disputed report must be assessed.

It can be traced back to the legitimate exercise of journalistic reporting and criticism,

in the specific form of investigative journalism, in compliance with the principle of essential
information.

The Court finds that there is a public interest in disseminating the news,

since the matter, although permeated by personal aspects, assumes substantial public relevance.

The telephone conversations between the former Minister and his wife relate to the topic,

of undoubted interest, concerning the possibility that the assignment of high institutional positions, rather than

inspired by the best care for the public interest, could be influenced by issues of a purely personal

nature.
Indeed, while acknowledging the understandable emotional distress experienced by those involved, it must be

affirmed that the full and original presentation of the conversation is fully justified by

the aim of conveying the historical fact in its immediacy, thus avoiding the risk of

arousing in the viewer the suspicion of artificial or biased reconstructions by the journalist.

Furthermore, this is consistent with the very nature of investigative journalism, “committed”

to the dissemination of facts as faithful as possible to historical reality.

2. On the lateness of the sanctioning measure

Despite the comprehensive nature of the conclusions just outlined—treated in the order resulting
from the application of the aforementioned principle of “more liquid reason”—for the sake of completeness, the Court,

regarding the question concerning the nature of the time limits for concluding the proceedings, believes

that they are, in fact, of central importance for the purposes of implementing the democratic principle not only in our

legal system, which is solemnly qualified in relation to this principle (Article 1 of the Constitution), but also in the most
significant expressions of the legal-political civilization that finds its fundamental character in it,
constituting a “cornerstone of democracy in the general legal system” (judgment no. 126 of 29 April 1985, cited). It is appropriate to briefly and concisely outline the reasons that lead to the belief that these are

peremptory time limits.
In this regard, it must be noted that the administrative sanctioning procedure, by its very nature, presents clear special characteristics compared to the “general” administrative procedure,

since its outcome consists in the “inflicting of disadvantages not immediately related to the satisfaction of the public interest harmed by the infringement” (Constitutional Court No. 151 of 2021).

This gives particular intensity to the needs for legal certainty and predictability associated

with the exercise of such public powers.

The certainty of the time within which the administrative authority must conclude the procedure allows
the interested parties to effectively exercise their right to defense, avoiding, on the one hand, the

risk associated with possible inertia on the part of the requested authority and, on the other, the risk of

unlimited temporal exposure to the possible infliction of a disadvantage.

Given this prospect, it is clear that the peremptory nature of the deadlines within which

the proceeding authority must complete the various phases of the proceedings, up to the final decision,

represents an essential prerequisite for ensuring compliance with fundamental principles

of the legal system, guaranteed by the Constitution.
Moreover, the Court of Cassation recently shared this view, stating that:

“The lack of a peremptory deadline, on the contrary, places the authority holding punitive power in an unjustifiably privileged position which, in the current legal context,

appears as an anachronistic legacy of the special supremacy of the public administration.”

The provision of a precise time limit for the imposition of a sanction protects legal

certainty (in terms of the predictability of the consequences arising from the authoritative response to the
violation of a public precept, with the aim of specific and general prevention) and the effectiveness of the

right of defense of members of society (which requires temporal contiguity between the ascertainment

of the offense and the application of the sanction)” (see Cass. No. 759/2025).

The fact that the Guarantor has, in its
regulation, established its own timeframes and related deadlines also supports the peremptory nature of the deadlines.

In particular, Table B attached to Regulation No. 2/2019, reflecting the provisions of Article

143 of the Privacy Code, establishes that decisions on complaints must be made within 9-12 months
from receipt of the complaint. The longer term of 12 months is granted by law

only in the presence of justified investigative needs previously communicated to the interested party,

as established by Article 8 of the same regulation (which, in this case,

did not occur). Based on the foregoing considerations, the Court annuls the contested provision and,

consequently, declares the sanctions imposed therein to have lapsed.

Costs are assessed on the basis of the losing party’s case and are determined as per the operative part, taking into account the

value of the dispute declared in the application and the procedural activity performed.

p.q.m.

The Court, in its final ruling in the case in question, rules as follows:

grants the application and, consequently, annuls Order No. 621 of October 23, 2025, issued

by the Personal Data Protection Authority;
orders the losing party to pay the legal costs, which are set at a total of €5,000.00 for professional fees, plus VAT, CPA, and general expenses.

Rome, January 22, 2026

Judge

Corrado Bile
</pre>

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