Fines imposed on public bodies in Belgium

Date: 28.11.2019

Responsible body: two public bodies in Belgium

Nature of the data protection violation: Unauthorised use of personal data

The Belgian data protection authority has fined a mayor and a city councillor €5,000 in two separate cases. The reason for the data protection fine was the use of personal data.which were used without permission to send political advertising. The background was campaigning in the context of the 2018 local elections in Belgium. The Belgian supervisory authority rated the conduct negatively in that persons with public mandates in particular should have a role model function.

In the case of the mayor, 476 people were affected, the city council even wrote to 654 people without permission. The final verdict of the Data Protection Inspectorate was: "Data collected by officials must be collected for specific purposes and may not subsequently be processed in a way incompatible with the purposes for which they were collected. In both cases a fine of EUR 5,000 was enforced.

Fines: 5,000 Euro

Country: Belgium

Source: European Data Protection Board

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