A.S. Watson Health & Beauty Continental Europe B.V.

Description

The Dutch DPA has imposed a fine of EUR 600,000 on A.S. Watson Health & Beauty Continental Europe B.V.. The controller had tracked visitors to their drugstore website “Kruidvat.nl” with tracking cookies without their consent. The cookie banner on the website had the boxes for consenting to the placement of tracking software pre-ticked by default. Visitors who nevertheless wanted to reject the cookies could only do so with greater difficulty. This allowed the controller to collect sensitive personal data from millions of website visitors and create profiles. Among other things, the controller collected location data and information on purchased products. Since the products purchased included drugstore products, it was also possible to draw conclusions about health conditions based on the purchase of pregnancy tests or medication, for example. ---UPDATE --- Following an objection filed by the processor, the DPA reduced the fine from EUR 600,000 to a sum of EUR 50,000.