The Office for Personal Data Protection has fined the government movement ORDINARY PEOPLE and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) for violating personal data protection regulations.
This was likely a marketing ploy as part of a pre-election online campaign in February 2020, when the OĽaNO movement collected information about voters, including their names, email addresses, phone numbers, and even political preferences.
The collection of political opinions is contrary to European legislation, as this constitutes a special category of personal data whose processing is prohibited unless the conditions set forth in Article 9( 2 of the GDPR are met.
Further Issues
But that was not all. As reported by the weekly TREND, OĽaNO also required explicit consent for marketing purposes, which, according to legal experts, the poll did not have. Other errors were also pointed out, such as missing contact information for the operator of the pre-election survey and a cumbersome process for withdrawing consent to the processing of personal data.
According to the office’s spokesperson, Lucia Bezáková, the office found several violations of personal data protection in its first-instance decision and imposed a fine; however, since the operator appealed, the decision is not yet final. Neither the Office nor OĽaNO wished to disclose the amount of the fine.
Peter Dojčan from the OĽaNO movement’s media team also commented on the case: “We respect the independence and decisions of the Office for Personal Data Protection. Since the decision in this case has not yet become final, the process is not yet complete, and for that reason, we will not comment on it.”
