Futura Internationale Fined €500,000 by French Regulators
CNIL imposed the fine in late November in relation to cold calling telephone advertising campaigns that Futura Internationale had been running.
Specifically, the fine relates the Futura Internationale failing to provide adequate information, effectively implementing current and prospective customer’s opt-out requests, and recording excessive comments about them.
Austria Data Protection Authority Fine Österreichische Post AG (OPAG) €18million
Following an oral hearing, the Austrian DPA fined the postal service OPAG a hefty €18million for GDPR violations.
Specifically, the fine related to the OPAG processing political affinity data, processing data related to the frequency of parcel delivery and processing data related to relocations for the purposes of direct marketing.
The penalty is not final, and can be challenged before the Federal Administrative Court in due course.
Chinese Government Slam Companies Failing to Protect User Data
The country’s Ministry of Industry and Technology named and shamed companies still failing to protect data privacy.
Software operated by the likes of Tencent (807 million active accounts) and smartphone giant Xiaomi were both highlighted.
Tencent were singled out for continuing to force users to give up their location data and a host of authorisations in order to use the app, and for making it difficult to cancel accounts.