Recital 20

(20) In recognition of the growing relevance and value of intangible assets, the destruction or corruption of data, such as digital files deleted from a hard drive, should also be compensated for, including the cost of recovering or restoring those data. The protection of natural persons necessitates compensation being available for material losses resulting not only from death or personal injury, such as funeral or medical expenses or lost income, and from damage to property, but also for destruction or corruption of data. Destruction or corruption of data does not automatically result in a material loss if the victim is able to retrieve the data at no cost, such as where a back-up of the data exists or the data can be downloaded again, or an economic operator restores or recreates temporarily unavailable data, for example in a virtual environment. Destruction or corruption of data is distinct from data leaks or breaches of data protection rules, and, consequently, compensation for infringements of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (6) or (EU) 2018/1725 (7) of the European Parliament and of the Council or Directive 2002/58/EC (8) or (EU) 2016/680 (9) of the European Parliament and of the Council is not affected by this Directive.

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Source: EUR-Lex CELLAR · retrieved 2026-08-26 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.