- Enforcing jurisdiction
- Belgium · Geography does not establish applicable law.
- Confirmed applicable legislation
- Privacy topics
DPA case 133/2025 – Complaint Upheld (Belgium, 2025)
Privacy enforcement record
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A politician in Belgium sent unsolicited political campaign emails to a person without her consent. This is important because it shows that even public figures must respect people's privacy and not misuse their personal information.
What happened
The politician emailed a resident for campaign purposes without obtaining her consent first.
Who was affected
The resident who received the unsolicited political campaign email.
What the authority found
The authority found that the politician violated GDPR rules by sending marketing emails without the recipient's consent.
Why this matters
This ruling serves as a reminder that consent is crucial for any marketing communications, including political campaigns. Politicians and organizations should ensure they have permission before contacting individuals.
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The controller is a member of the Flemish Parliament and alderman in a municipality. On April 2024, in the context of an election campaign, he sent by e-mail a request to the data subject for cooperation in his political campaign. On May 2024, the data subject asked the controller how he had obtained her personal data. He responded that he had collected it online in the course of his contact with OKRA, an association of seniors in Flanders and Brussels. On 21 May 2024, the data subject lodged a complaint with the DPA (Autorité de protection des données/Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit - APD/GBA) concerning the unlawfulness of the processing of her personal data for the purpose of sending election advertising and the insufficient compliance with her right of access. The controller claimed that he had collected the email address from a publicly available source, the website of the municipality. The purpose of the data collection was to invite her to a tour of the Flemish Parliament, in her capacity as a representative of the Family Federation Division. Her email address was included by mistake in a mailing list for political communication. First, the DPA held that the controller violated the principle of lawfulness (Article 5(1)(a) GDPR) for sending political marketing to the data subject without her consent. The sending of emails for the purpose of political marketing, constitutes direct marketing and can only be authorised if the data subjects have given their consent. Second, it found that the controller violated the principle of purpose limitation (Article 5(1)(b) GDPR) for collecting data from a public source and using it for electoral purposes. The controller initially collected her email address for the purpose of inviting her to the tour, but but proceeded with using it for political marketing. The DPA highlighted that this processing was beyond the original purpose of the collection, it was incompatible with the initial data processing, and cound not rel
Outcome
Complaint Upheld
A data subject complaint that was upheld by the DPA.
Related Enforcement Actions (0)
No other enforcement actions found for DPA case 133/2025 in BE
This is the only recorded action for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. DPA case 133/2025 - Belgium (2025). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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