Garante, Italian DPA, issues €600,000 fine

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The Italian Data Protection Authority (‘Garante’) has fined a financial institution €600,000 for several violations of the Italian pre-GDPR data protection law.

The fine was because the personal data of customers, including contact details, employment data (salary information), education data, identification details and financial data (bank account number, information on loans, payment status and customers’ credit ratings), was unlawfully accessed.

The Italian Data Protection Authority said that the bank had failed to implement adequate security measures. In determining the amount of the fine, the Garante took into account the fact that the bank had implemented various security measures to strengthen the security of its IT systems following the breach.

Insight

Given this fine was under the old law, it seems very likely that it would have been many millions if it had been under the GDPR.

The fact that the Italian regulator has only just dealt with this case (which happened in 2017!) shows what a backlog some regulators have (and that when they get to post GDPR cases the fines are likely to be significant (as they have been in the UK and France).

If your organisation is looking to comply with the requirements of the GDPR then take a look at how our CSaaS and DPaaS solutions can help.