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Finland: Sanctions Board of Ombudsman fines Suomen Asiakastieto €440,000 for failing to cooperate with supervisory authority

The Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman ('the Ombudsman') published, on 2 March 2023, its Decision in Case No. 310/161/23, as issued on 17 February 2022, in which the Sanctions Board of the Ombudsman ('the Sanctions Board') imposed a fine of €440,000 on Suomen Asiakastieto Oy, for violations of Article 58(2) of the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) ('GDPR'), following an investigation.

Background to the decision

In particular, the Ombudsman noted that it had investigated Suomen Asiakastieto's operations in the processing of payment default information based on legally binding judgments, and that it had stated at the time that information based on judgments issued in litigation should not have been recorded as payment default notes. As such, the Ombudsman explained that, in November 2021, it had ordered Suomen Asiakastieto to correct its operating procedures in the registration of payment default information based on legally binding judgments and to remove all resulting incorrect payment default entries.

Findings of the Ombudsman

Further to the above, in light of the investigation carried out, the Ombudsman found that there were shortcomings in Suomen Asiakastieto's practices for complying timely with the Ombudsman's order. In particular, the Ombudsman found that Suomen Asiakastieto took action in a non-timely manner, resulting in a violation of Article 58(2) of the GDPR.

Outcomes

As a result, the Sanctions Board imposed a fine of €440,000 on Suomen Asiakastieto for the aforementioned reasons. Lastly, the Ombudsman stated that an appeal may be lodged against the decision with an administrative court.

You can read the press release and the decision, only available in Finnish, here.

UPDATE (22 March 2023)

EDPB publishes English summary of Sanctions Board's decision

The European Data Protection Board ('EDPB') published, on 21 March 2023, a summary in English of the Sanctions Board's decision to fine Suomen Asiakastieto €440,000.

You can read the summary here.

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