Official documentation

Art. 9 GDPR: Processing of special categories of personal data

gdpr-info.eu (Intersoft Consulting), 2016

Read on October 16, 2026

What it is: The full text of Article 9 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679), which prohibits processing special categories of personal data, including biometric data used to identify a person, unless an exception applies.
How much weight it carries: A faithful reproduction of the regulation text on a long-running reference site, not the Official Journal itself. The legal text is authoritative; the site layout and annotations are not.

Facts taken from this source

Under the GDPR, the ban on processing special category data does not apply when the person has given explicit consent for one or more specified purposes.
“the data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes” (Article 9(2)(a))
Article 9 of the GDPR prohibits processing special categories of personal data, including biometric data used for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, unless one of the listed exceptions applies.
“the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation shall be prohibited” (Article 9(1))