HUNGARIAN DPA FINES FORBES 4.5 MILLION FORINTS

11.09.2020     

The Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information imposed a total of 4.5 million forints in data protection fines on Mediarey Hungary Services Zrt., the publisher of the Hungarian Forbes magazine in two cases.

In the cases, the Authority established that  by not carrying out proper interest assessment in relation to the printed and the on-line versions of the Forbes publication containing the largest family undertakings published in September 2019 and the printed and the on-line versions of the Forbes publication containing the 50 richest Hungarians published in January 2020, and by failing to inform the Complainants (the data subjects) in advance about the results of comparing the legitimate interests of its own and of a third party (the public) and of the Complainants, the Publisher infringed General Data Protection Regulation.    

Because of the infringements established, the Authority reprimanded the Publisher in both cases and at the same time ordered it: 
 

  • to meet its obligation to provide information to the Complainants in relation to the data processing, including information concerning the interests of the Publisher, as well as of Complainants considered in the course of interest assessment and the result of the interest assessment, the information on the right to object and the information concerning possibilities of the enforcement of rights;
  • to carry out the interest assessment including the second individual interest assessment following the objection in accordance with the legal regulations and these decisions, if in the course of data processing envisaged in the future, the Publisher intends to use legitimate interest as the legal basis;
  • to modify its practices related to providing information in advance in accordance with the legal regulations in force and the provisions of these decisions.

Also, the Authority imposed a data protection fine of 2 million forints in its decision of first case and 2.5 million forints in its decision of second case on the Publisher.

You can reach the full text of the decisions here.

Should you have any queries and/or remarks, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Kind regards,

Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law

info@zumbul.av.tr