The Hellenic Data Protection Authority, within its scope of competence, conducted a coordinated series of audits in companies for which it had received a large number of complaints concerning unsolicited phone calls for the promotion of goods and services.
More particularly, the activity of Wind, Vodafone, OTE and Cosmote was examined with an on-the-spot audit both at the companies’ own premises and the premises of the cooperating companies which conduct phone calls.
The DPA collected complete records of the calls made, which were cross-checked with the registries provided for in Article 11 of Law 3471/2006 on the “Protection of personal data and privacy in the electronic telecommunications sector” (“do not call”/“opt-out” registries) that are held by the telephony service providers. From the aforementioned cross-check, a large numbers of unlawful calls was discovered for the companies Wind, Vodafone, OTE and Cosmote.
At the same time, the DPA examined the procedures applied by these companies and judged that, although they have improved some of them, they do not apply, in practice, appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the complete lawfulness of their activity, despite the fact that they had sufficient time since the issuance and communication of Decisions 66, 65, 63 and 64/2016, which had addressed the same matter with regard to the aforementioned companies.
The Authority, for all the violations above, imposed a fine of EUR 150.000 to each company (Wind, Vodafone, OTE and Cosmote), which is the highest possible pursuant to the legislation before the General Data Protection Regulation, given that the aforementioned violations are traced in the period before its coming into force. The relevant Decisions (60, 61, 62 and 63/2018) are available in www.dpa.gr (in Greek).
Communications Department
Tel.: +30 210-6475696
