Poland’s Personal Data Protection Office (UODO) this week decided to fine an online retailer PLN 2.8 million, or €645,000 for “insufficient organizational and technical safeguards”.

It has been reported the online retailer in question, Morele.net, became aware of a breach of its systems in November 2018 that impacted 2.2 million customers that used the company’s nine websites. Customers reported receiving SMS messages demanding extra payments to complete an order that had been submitted. The SMS scam included a link to a fake electronic payment gateway controlled by the cybercriminals.

Poland’s Personal Data Protection Office (UODO) this week has taken the decision to apply a penalty of PLN 2.8 million or €645,000 for “insufficient organizational and technical safeguards”.

The data breach is reported to include names, telephone numbers, email addresses and delivery addresses. It was further reported that another 35,000 customers had additional information leaked, including their payment instalment information (including Personal ID number), education, source of income and net income, household maintenance costs and marital status.

In 2018, the European Union last year enacted the General Data Protection Regulation, a set of new requirements to protect the privacy of EU citizens and to make sure their personal data is safeguarded at all times. GDPR sets minimum standards for privacy and security which must be met by all entities that collect or process the data of EU citizens. Compliance failures can result in financial penalties up to a maximum of €20m or 4% of annual global revenue for the previous financial year.

President of UODO Jan Nowak said, in relation to the penalty applied to Morele.net: “By not using sufficient technical means of data protection, violated, among others specified in art. 5 paragraph 1 letter f GDPR, the principle of confidentiality.”

The application of this fine follows the trend of EU based data protection agencies implementing a stringent policy when it comes to applying financial penalties against companies and groups of all shapes and sizes for GDPR breaches. Other recent fines include a penalty for the unlawful use of facial recognition technology against a Swedish school, Unicredit Bank was fined US$146,000 for a GDPR breach in Romania and Google is facing a possible €5.45bn penalty in relation to using a GDPR ‘workaround’.

This highlights the importance for all companies operating in the European Union to ensure that they are doing everything possible to comply with the GDPR legislation. Breaches of any size are not being tolerated and 2019 has seen the trend towards the application and sanctioning of financial penalties across the entire EU. If you are a company doing business in this region and you are unsure if you are 100% compliant with the data privacy law then you must move swiftly to address this.

There is more guidance on this available in our articles on GDPR for US Companies, How to Prepare for GDPR, What are the GDPR Penalties? and Essential Steps for GDPR Compliance.