CNIL (France) - SAN-2021-008

CNIL (France) - SAN-2021-008
Authority:	CNIL (France)
Jurisdiction:	France
Relevant Law:	Article 5(1)(e) GDPR Article 13 GDPR Article 17 GDPR Article 32 GDPR Article 82 Loi n° 78-17 du 6 janvier 1978 relative à l'informatique, aux fichiers et aux libertés Article L34-5 Code des postes et des communications électroniques
Type:	Investigation
Outcome:	Violation Found
Started:
Decided:	14.06.2021
Published:	17.06.2021
Fine:	500000 EUR
Parties:	n/a
National Case Number/Name:	SAN-2021-008
European Case Law Identifier:	n/a
Appeal:	n/a
Original Language(s):	French
Original Source:	Légifrance (in FR)
Initial Contributor:	n/a

The CNIL fined a bricolage company a total of €500,000 for violating Articles 5(1)(e), 13, 17, and 32 GDPR and for violations of national provisions concerning cookies and unsolicited commercial communications.

English Summary

Facts

On 13th November 2018, the French DPA (CNIL) carried out an inspection at the Brico Privé's premises, a bricolage company, where the verification concerned data retention periods, information provided to data subjects, compliance with requests for the deletion of personal data of data subjects, the obligation to ensure data security and the obligation to obtain the consent of the data subject to receive commercial prospecting by e-mail.

In order to complete its investigations and after receiving additional documents the CNIL carried out an online inspection of all processing accessible from the bricoprive.com domain on 6 February 2020.

On 13 January 2021, as the company indicated that changes had been made to the methods of depositing cookies, a delegation from the CNIL carried out a new online control mission of any processing accessible from the bricoprive.com domain in order to update the findings made on 6 February 2020.

Holding

The CNIL found that the controller had violated Articles 5(1)(e), 13, 17 and 32 GDPR by failing to comply with the obligation to determine and implement data retention periods, failing to inform users of its website about processing activities, failing to comply with the request for erasure of data, and failing to ensure appropriate security measures regarding authentication on the website and on the customer relationship management software used by the company's employees.

The CNIL also found that the controller had violated the national provisions concerning cookies and consent to commercial prospection.

With regards to Article 5(1)(e), the DPA found that the company did not have a retention policy in place for the deletion of data. The company had data of accounts as much as 5 years old without any activity.

With regards to Article 13, the controller did not offer in their website information such as the contact details of the data protection officer, the retention periods, the legal bases for processing and certain rights from which individuals benefit under the GDPR.

With regards to Article 17, the company did not delete the data when there were requests the deletion of users' accounts, but only proceeded to the deactivation of the account, preventing the person from connecting to it and blocking the sending of commercial prospecting.

With regards to Article 32, the DPA found that there was not a sufficient level of security and meet the requirements of the robustness of passwords, both for users and employees.

With regards to cookies, the DPA found that several cookies that did not fall within the scope of the exceptions (necessary cookies) were placed on the user's terminal as soon as they arrived on the home page of the site, and before any action on them part.

Additionally, the company was also prospecting users who created an account for commercial purposes without obtaining their consent.

Therefore, the CNIL fined Brico Privé €300,000 for violating articles 5(1)(e), 13, 17 and 32 GDPR and €200,000 for violating article 82 of loi n° 78-17 du 6 janvier 1978 modifiée relative à l'informatique, aux fichiers et aux libertés and Article L.34-5 du code des postes et des communications électroniques (CPCE).

The CNIL also ordered the controller to bring its processing operations into compliance with the obligations resulting from articles 5(1)(e) GDPR and article L. 34-5 of the CPCE, and in particular:

• cease to retain the personal data of former customers of the company's website at the end of the set period of inactivity, proceed with the purging of such data retained by the company up to the date of the deliberation of the restricted formation and justify the deletion of such personal data beyond a set period of inactivity, which it will be for the company to justify
• provide evidence of an intermediate archive procedure for customers' personal data, established after sorting out the relevant data to be stored and deleting irrelevant data, as well as the starting point of such storage (e.g. for invoices stored for accounting purposes)
• cease commercial prospection to prospects who have not given their consent, except by obtaining their consent.

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English Machine Translation of the Decision

The decision below is a machine translation of the French original. Please refer to the French original for more details.