Address Broker – €500,000 Fine (Austria, 2021)

€500,000Datenschutzbehörde28 September 2021Austria
appealed
Fine

General GDPR enforcement action

This case relates to broader data protection obligations, not specifically to cookie or consent banner compliance. It is not included in cookie statistics or the Risk Calculator.

An Austrian address broker was fined EUR 500,000 for limiting how people could exercise their data rights. The company required users to fill out a specific form to make data requests, which the Austrian DPA found restrictive. This case highlights the importance of making it easy for people to access their data rights.

What happened

An address broker was fined for requiring users to use a specific form to exercise their data rights.

Who was affected

Individuals who wanted to exercise their data rights with the address broker.

What the authority found

The Austrian DPA ruled that the company's form requirement limited people's ability to exercise their data rights, violating GDPR Article 12.

Why this matters

This case emphasizes that companies must provide flexible ways for individuals to exercise their data rights. Businesses should ensure their processes are user-friendly and compliant with GDPR requirements.

GDPR Articles Cited

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Art. 12 GDPR
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Art. 12 GDPR

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Full Legal Summary
Detailed

The Austrian DPA has imposed a fine of EUR 500,000 on an address broker. The controller provided a form for data subjects to exercise their rights. The controller regularly did not allow data subjects to exercise their rights in another way, always referring them to the form. Only when a data subject actively refused to use the form did the controller respond to requests to exercise data subjects rights which did not use the form. The DPA decided that this limited the exercise of data subjects' rights in a way that was not compatible with Art. 12 GDPR, and issued a fine of EUR 500,000. The controller appealed against the decision to the Austrian Federal Administrative Court, which dismissed the appeal.

Related Enforcement Actions (0)

No other enforcement actions found for Address Broker in AT

This is the only recorded action for this entity in this jurisdiction.

Details

Fine Date

28 September 2021

Authority

Datenschutzbehörde

Fine Amount

€500,000

Enforcement Tracker ID

ETid-2769

About this data

Data: CMS GDPR Enforcement Tracker
Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
AI-verified and classified

Cite as: Cookie Fines. Address Broker - Austria (2021). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu

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