Romanian telecom groups, state institutions fined for personal data use

Several large telecom operators, online retailers, as well as the Romanian General Police Inspectorate, the Romanian Lottery, and other public institutions have been fined up to EUR 14,800 each for not informing the users that their websites contained cookies. The National Supervisory Authority for Personal Data Processing (ANSPDCP) ruled that they have been illegally processing the users’ personal data, reports local Profit.ro. The Police Inspectorate has only received a warning for not informing users that their website uses cookies, whereas the Romanian Lottery received the biggest fine of EUR 14,800 for not informing users about cookies, as well as illegally processing personal data. Telecom operators Telekom, Orange, RCS&RDS, and Vodafone received fines between EUR 2,000 and EUR 6,800. The classifieds site olx.ro was also fined EUR 9,000. According to the EU Directive “E-Privacy”, Internet users need to be notified when a website uses cookies which retain users’ preferences and searches, in order to advertise to them services and products that they didn’t request. Draft project in Romania: Access to personal data, granted only by a judge editor@romania-insider.com