According to the Court of Justice, a person requesting access to environmental information may be required to identify him- or herself by his or her actual name and/or physical address. Although such an identification is not compulsory under Directive 2003/4 (“Aarhus Directive”), the Court of Justice held in a ruling of 15 January 2026 (C-129/24) that public authorities may ask for such an identification to ensure that a request is made by a natural or legal person.
Facts of the case
The case concerns a high number of requests for environmental information directed to the Irish partly state-owned forestry undertaking, Coillte Cuideachta Ghníomhaíochta Ainmnithe (“Coillte”), made by anonymous applicants and applicants using pseudonyms inspired by film characters. Coillte took the view that these requests were part of an organised campaign to disrupt its operations and requested the applicants to provide their actual names and addresses, in the absence of which it rejected the requests. As these rejections were appealed, the Irish High Court referred preliminary questions to the Court of Justice on the conformity of these rejections with the Aarhus Directive.
The ruling of the Court of Justice
In essence, the preliminary questions revolve around the question whether a Member State may require an “applicant”, within the meaning of Article 2(5) of the Aarhus Directive, to give his real name and/or physical address before granting access to environmental information.
At the outset, the Court of Justice notes that the Aarhus Directive does not require an applicant to provide this information, as the relevant provision only states that the applicant should be a natural or legal person. The Court of Justice subsequently finds that the objectives of the Aarhus Directive, inter alia to ensure that environmental information is progressively made available and disseminated to the public, do not require the identification of the applicant.
In the absence of EU law provisions defining more precisely the practical arrangements for access to environmental information, the Court of Justice holds that it is for Member States to define the detailed rules for ensuring that requests are actually made by natural or legal persons.
Since the Irish national rules making requests for access to environmental information subject to identification aim to verify that the request emanates from a natural or legal person and to notify the applicant accordingly, the Court of Justice holds that those stricter national rules are not contrary to the principles of equivalence and effectiveness. According to the Court of Justice, the identification does not make it impossible or excessively difficult to exercise the right of access to environmental information.
Final remarks
The judgment at issue clarifies that Member States may make requests to access environmental information subject to stricter identification criteria than the ones laid down in the Aarhus Directive. In the light of the technical possibilities to send mass or automated requests that might hinder continuity in the public service, the ruling gives public authorities tools to filter out requests that do not come from real persons. Less certain, however, is to what extent the requirement to provide one’s physical address, which is now approved by the Court of Justice, is proportionate in cases where access requests are treated in an electronic way.