- Enforcing jurisdiction
- Belgium · Geography does not establish applicable law.
- Confirmed applicable legislation
- Privacy topics
EU DisinfoLab – €2,800 Fine (Belgium, 2022)
Privacy enforcement record
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The Belgian DPA fined the NGO EU DisinfoLab €2,800 for mishandling personal data in a political analysis. The NGO published data from Twitter accounts without proper anonymization, risking users' privacy. This case underscores the responsibility organizations have to protect personal information.
What happened
EU DisinfoLab published raw data from 55,000 Twitter accounts without anonymizing sensitive information.
Who was affected
Twitter users whose accounts were analyzed and had their personal data exposed.
What the authority found
The DPA concluded that EU DisinfoLab violated multiple GDPR obligations regarding data processing and security.
Why this matters
This ruling serves as a warning to organizations about the consequences of inadequate data protection practices. Companies should prioritize user privacy to avoid fines.
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The Belgian DPA has fined the NGO EU DisinfoLab EUR 2,700. In 2018, the NGO published an analysis to identify the possible political origin of tweets circulating on a particularly heated controversy in France, the 'Benalla affair.' For the analysis, the organization had processed the data of 55,000 Twitter accounts, of which more than 3,300 had been classified as political. The raw data obtained from this was then published without taking minimal security precautions, such as pseudonymizing the data. The DPA noted that publication of the data could potentially expose data subjects to the risk of discrimination or discredit because of the non-anonymized political profiling. In addition, the files also contained information about the religious beliefs, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation of the individuals whose accounts were analyzed. For this reason, the DPA concluded that several obligations of the GDPR, such as lawfulness of processing, transparency to data subjects, and data security, were violated.
Related Enforcement Actions (0)
No other enforcement actions found for EU DisinfoLab in BE
This is the only recorded action for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
Fine Date
27 January 2022
Authority
Autorité de Protection des Données
Fine Amount
€2,800
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. EU DisinfoLab - Belgium (2022). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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