Privacy Blog
ITALIAN GARANTE FINES VODAFONE ITALIA 12.2 MILLION EUROS FOR UNLAWFUL TELEMARKETING PURPOSES
20.11.2020
On 16 November 2020, the Italian data protection authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, “Garante”) announced that it has fined Vodafone Italia S.p.A. €12.2 million for illegally processing the personal data of customers for telemarketing purposes.
Garante outlined that the investigation on the telemarketing practices of Vodafone and its sales' network started because of hundreds of individual complaints concerning unsolicited marketing calls. In addition, Garante highlighted that the investigation found serious violations in relation to the collection of consent, as well as to the principles of accountability and data protection by design as set forth in the EU GDPR.
Furthermore, Garante stated that Vodafone, among other things, used fictitious phone numbers that were not in any case included in the Register of Communication Operators in order to carry out the telemarketing activities.
Moreover, Garante noted that Vodafone received marketing lists from commercial partners without the free, informed, and specific consent of data subjects. Also, Garante found that Vodafone had adopted inadequate security measures in relation to the clients management systems, since Vodafone's employees requested individuals to send identity documents via Whatsapp, with the potential purpose of carrying out spamming, phishing, or other unlawful activities.
As a result, Garante ordered Vodafone to implement systems that comply with consent requirements for processing data to telemarketing. And finally, the Garante banned Vodafone from further processing data for marketing or commercial purposes where such data are acquired from third parties that have not obtained the users’ free, specific, and informed consent to data disclosure.
You can reach the full text of the European Data Protection Board’s English Press Release here.
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Kind regards,
Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law