The GSMA, the organizers behind Barcelona’s annual Cellular World Congress (MWC), have been fined €200 million for not finishing up an information safety influence evaluation (DPIA)
Per TechCrunch (opens in new tab), the choice (opens in new tab) (PDF) delivered in Spanish by the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) discovered that the GSMA fell brief when failing to account for biometric knowledge collected from attendees, partially on account of BREEZZ – an optionally available, automated id verification system allowing entry to the occasion.
The GSMA’s evaluation was discovered, per the choice, to be “merely nominal”, neglecting to account for “substantive facets” of its knowledge processing strategies, nor the dangers of, or want for, the BREEZZ system.
The GDPR and MWC’s DPIA
The EU’s Normal Information Safety Regulation (GDPR) requires {that a} strong DPIA be carried out when knowledge assortment could pose a “excessive threat” to the precise to privateness of these affected Biometric facial recognition know-how falls into this class on this case as a result of mentioned knowledge was used to establish MWC attendees.
The AEPD additionally dominated that the GSMA collected passports and EU id documentation from attendees, and required them to consent to biometric knowledge assortment as a part of the add course of.
The GDPR clearly states that consent should be particular, and given freely, however, as found by digital wellness advocate Dr Anastasia Dedyukhina, this clearly wasn’t an choice.
“I couldn’t discover a affordable justification for it,” she wrote in a LinkedIn (opens in new tab) put up, “their web site steered that I might additionally carry my ID/passport for in-person verification, which I didn’t thoughts.”
“Nonetheless, the organizers insisted that until I add my passport particulars, I COULD NOT attend the dwell occasion and would want to affix just about, which I ended up doing.”
The GSMA continued these practices for the 2022 and 2023 occasions, however, in gentle of the AEPD’s ruling, issues will seemingly have to vary – nearly definitely for the higher.
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