- Enforcing jurisdiction
- Austria · Geography does not establish applicable law.
- Confirmed applicable legislation
- Privacy topics
Austrian Postal Service (Plaintiff) – Court Ruling (Austria, 2020)
Privacy enforcement record
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The Austrian Postal Service was found to have sold personal data about people's political preferences without proper legal grounds. The data protection authority ordered the postal service to stop this practice and erase the data. This case is significant as it stresses the importance of having a legal basis for processing sensitive personal information.
What happened
The Austrian Postal Service sold data about individuals' political party affinities without a valid legal basis.
Who was affected
Individuals whose political preferences were sold by the Austrian Postal Service.
What the authority found
The data protection authority ruled that the postal service violated GDPR by processing sensitive personal data without explicit consent.
Why this matters
This decision underscores the necessity for companies to have a clear legal basis before handling sensitive personal data. Businesses should review their data practices to ensure compliance with privacy laws.
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= The Austrian Postal Service (Österreichische Post AG) had been selling data on natural person's party "affinity for a political party" to their customers. In light of broad media coverage on this topic the Austrian Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde - DSB) started an ex-officio investigation against the Austrian Postal Service. The DSB investigated i.a the records of processing activities and the data protection impact assessment of the Austrian Postal Service. Further, it investigated records that must be maintained under § 151 Trade Regulations Act (Gewerbeordnung 1994 - GewO). = With its decision dated 22.01.2019, the DSB #held that the Austrian Postal Service had processed personal data on the "affinity for a political party" without a legal basis, as these data qualify as special categories of personal data under Article 9(1) GDPR. Their processing would require the data subjects' explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a) GDPR and § 151(4) GewO, #ordered the Austrian Postal Service to stop the processing of these data effective immediately and to erase such data within a period of two weeks (unless a derogation under Article 17(3) GDPR was applicable), #held that the Austrian Postal Service had failed to carry out a data protection impact assessment prior to 25.05.2018, #held that this data protection impact assessment was incorrect because it did not take into account that data on the "affinity for a political party" qualify as special categories of personal data, #held that the records of processing activities maintained by the Austrian Postal Service was incorrect, because it did not take into account that data on the"affinity for a political party" qualify as special categories of personal data #ordered the Austrian Postal Service to carry out a new, correct data protection impact assessment regarding the processing on data on the "affinity for a political party". = On 11.03.2019 the Austrian Postal Service filed an appeal against the DSB's d
Outcome
Court Ruling
A ruling by a national court on a data-protection matter.
Related Cases (0)
No other cases found for Austrian Postal Service (Plaintiff) in AT
This is the only recorded case for this entity in this jurisdiction.
Details
Ruling Date
26 November 2020
Authority
Datenschutzbehörde
About this data
Cite as: Cookie Fines. Austrian Postal Service (Plaintiff) - Austria (2020). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu
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