In this preliminary ruling, the ECJ had to assess whether the door-to-door proclamation activity of a religious community falls within the scope of the Data Protection Directive (DPA) or is to be considered as an “activity for exclusively personal or family” purposes and thus not covered by the DPA. The ECJ has answered this question to the effect that such activity falls under the DSRL and must therefore be observed. Further, the question to be resolved was whether the handwritten notes made by the promulgating members in the course of their door-to-door promulgation activities constitute a “file” within the meaning of the DSRL. The ECJ assumes a broad concept of data files here and only requires that the data must be structured according to certain criteria that ensure easy retrieval of the data. To be covered by this term, such a collection of data need not consist of specific card indexes or directories or other classification systems used for research. Most recently, it was disputed who should be considered the data controller in the case of door-to-door proclamation activity – the proclaiming member or the religious community behind it. The ECJ stated that, due to the circumstances of the main proceedings, there is joint data processing and that proclaiming members and the religious community are to be considered joint controllers. This does not require the religious community to have access to this data or to have provided its members with demonstrable written guidance or instructions on such data processing. Although the ruling was still issued on the DSRL, it is relevant for the GDPR because the essential definitions in the DSRL and in the GDPR do not differ.