Dutch regulator fines Netflix €4.75m
A Dutch regulator has taken Netflix to task over the streaming service’s harvesting of user data and its opaque reasons for doing so. The Personal Data Authority (AP) found that between 2018 and 2020, Netflix did not give customers enough information about what the company does with their personal data. The streaming service was fined €4.75 million for the practice and Netflix has since improved the provision of information.
Netflix collects different types of personal data from customers. From e-mail address, phone numbers and payment details, to data about what customers watch on the platform, and when exactly.
Research launched by the AP in 2019 shows that Netflix did not clearly inform customers in its privacy statement about what exactly Netflix does with their data. Moreover, customers were not given enough information when they asked Netflix what data the company collects about them. Those are violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Netflix was criticised for giving too little information to customers on several points or in an unclear way. The company was not clear enough about the purposes of and legal basis (basis) for collecting and using personal data, what personal data its shares with other parties and why, how long Netflix stores personal data, and how Netflix ensures that personal data remains secure when the company sends it to countries outside Europe.
The AP launched this investigation in response to complaints from None of your Business (noyb), an Austrian privacy foundation founded by activist Max Schrems. Those complaints were filed with the Austrian privacy regulator and forwarded to the AP because Netflix’s European headquarters is in the Netherlands.
This is because the AVG regulates that companies that process data in different EU countries have to deal with one privacy regulator: the one in the country where the company is based. The AP coordinated the investigation and the amount of the fine with other European privacy regulators.
Netflix has objected to the fine.
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