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The German arm of international British telecommunications firm Vodafone has been fined almost A$80 million for privacy and data breaches.
Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI) Federal Commissioner Prof. Dr. Louisa Specht-Riemenschenider, the nation’s data protection authority, issued Vodafone GmbH with 2 fines that totalled €45 million (roughly A$79.15 million).
“Due to malicious employees in partner agencies who broker contracts to customers on behalf of Vodafone, there had [sic] been fraud cases due to fictitious contracts or contract changes at the expense of customers, among other things,” said the authority.
The first fine, which came to €15 million, was imposed on Vodafone because it “had not adequately reviewed and monitored partner agencies working on its behalf, breaching Article 28(1) sentence 1 of the GDPR. It was also warned of breaches of Article 31(1) as vulnerabilities in some of its distribution systems were identified.
It was then fined another €30 million for issues with authentication for its ‘MeinVodafone’ online portal for the Vodafone Hotline.
Specht-Riemenschneider said that Vodafone accepted the fines and cooperated with the BfDI.
"Where data breaches take place, sanctions must be imposed. However, with my work, I also want to ensure that data breaches do not occur in the first place. Companies that want to comply with data protection law must be empowered to do so," she added.
"I would like to point out that Vodafone has cooperated with me continuously and without restriction throughout the entire proceedings and has also disclosed circumstances that have incriminated the company."
She added that the fines have already been paid and the telco also donated several million euros to data protection and other cyber related organisations.
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