TIM SPA WAS FINED € 27.8 MILLION BY THE ITALIAN DATA PROTECTION AUTHORITY

13 February 2020

The Italian SA (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, the DPA) fined TIM SpA 27.802.496 Million Euro because of several instances of unlawful data processing for marketing purposes. The breach affected millions of people.

From January 2017 to the beginning of 2019, the DPA received hundreds of complaints regarding, in particular, unsolicited marketing calls that had been performed without any consent or  in spite of the called parties’ inclusion in the public opt-out register; in yet other cases, the called parties had clearly denied their consent to receiving marketing calls allegedly unfair processing practices were also mentioned in the complaints with regard to prize competitions and the relevant forms as submitted by TIM to users.

Under the investigation, it was observed that in one case, a person was contacted 155 times in one month, in about two hundred thousand cases, ‘off-list’ numbers – that is, numbers not included in TIM’s list of marketing numbers – had been called. Moreover, other types of illicit conduct were also found such as TIM’s failure to supervise the activities of some call centres or to properly manage and update their blacklists (listing individuals who do not wish to receive marketing calls), and the fact that consent to marketing activities was mandatory in order to join the ‘Tim Party’ incentive discount scheme

As well as the fine, the DPA imposed 20 corrective measures on TIM including both prohibitions and injunctions. In particular, the DPA banned TIM from using, for marketing purposes, the data of the users that had denied their consent to marketing calls when contacted by call centres, of the users included in the black lists, and of the ‘non-customers’ that had not given their consent. The company is not permitted to use any longer the customer data that were collected via the ‘MyTim’, ‘TimPersonal’ and ‘TimSmartKid’ apps for purposes other than the provision of the relevant services without the users’ free, specific consent.

You can find the text of the news here.

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Kind regards,

Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law

info@zumbul.av.tr