Property development company

Opis

The DPA of Baden-Württemberg has imposed a fine of EUR 50,000 on a property development company. The company had sent a letter to a property owner in which it made a purchase price offer for their property. The letter did not contain any information on the origin of the data. Even after the owner asked the company where the data had been obtained, the company did not reply. In the course of its investigation, the DPA discovered that a surveyor had made use of his authority to inspect the electronic land register and, in two cases, had identified several hundred property owners without their knowledge. Subsequently, the surveyor had passed the relevant information to the company, which contacted the property owners. The DPA considered this to be, on the one hand, a violation of Art. 6 (1) GDPR and, on the other hand, a violation of Art. 14 GDPR due to the lack of information on the origin of the data.