Goodbye “Madame” or “Sir”: SNCF does not have to ask its customers for civility, rules the Council of State

SNCF , via its website or its SNCF Connect application, "cannot require its customers to communicate their civility" ( "Sir" or "Madam" ), ruled the Council of State in a decision published Thursday, in accordance with a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

The case began when the LGBT+ rights association Mousse filed a complaint with the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL), which rejected the complaint in March 2021. Mousse then turned to the Council of State. The association denounced SNCF Connect's practice of "systematically requiring its customers to indicate their civility" when purchasing tickets online. It considered that "this obligation and the resulting processing of personal data were contrary to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)," the Council of State recalled in a press release on Thursday.

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Before ruling, the highest French administrative court had consulted the CJEU. In its decision of January 9, 2025, the European Court ruled that "if the sole purpose of collecting the civility of customers of a transport company is to personalize commercial communication, it cannot be considered necessary for the performance of the contract between the user and the company," writes the Council of State in its press release. And "if certain services, such as couchette compartments reserved for single women, involve taking into account data relating to gender, this does not justify the collection of civility being mandatory for all services offered by SNCF Connect," specifies the French court. In rendering its judgment, the European Court relied on the principle of "data minimization," which requires not collecting information that is unnecessary for the provision of the ordered service.

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"Drawing the consequences of the CJEU ruling" , the Council of State "therefore noted that the systematic processing of personal data relating to the civility of customers for the sole purpose of personalizing the commercial relationship could not be considered necessary for the performance of the passenger transport contract by a railway company" . "The obligation imposed on customers to indicate their civility goes beyond the limits of what is strictly necessary to achieve the legitimate interest of SNCF Connect" , it further wrote. The Council of State also ordered the State to pay 3,000 euros to the Mousse association.