MILANO – The Guarantor for the protection of personal data has imposed a fine of over 26 million and 500 thousand euros on Enel Energia for the unlawful processing of users’ personal data for telemarketing purposes.
In addition to the payment of the fine, the company must, explains the note, adopt a series of measures dictated by the authority to comply with national and European legislation on data protection.
The provision comes at the end of a complex activity initiated by the authority following hundreds of reports and complaints from users who complained of receiving, in the name and on behalf of Enel Energia, unwanted promotional calls, even on a pre-recorded disk, the difficulty in exercising one’s rights regarding personal data protection and, more generally, problems deriving from the management of data in the context of energy supply services, including the treatments carried out through the reserved area of the company website and the app of consumption management.
The office of the guarantor verified how the phenomenon of telemarketing in the energy sector, with the approach of the deadline for the transition from the protected market of electricity and gas to the free market, has registered a clear and worrying increase. During the investigation, a chronic, intense and increasingly invasive phenomenon of unwanted promotional telephone calls, in the absence of the necessary consent, to reserved users or users registered in the register of oppositions emerged, in addition to the late or non-response to requests to exercise the rights of access to personal data or opposition to processing for marketing purposes.
From the National Consumers Union they welcomed the news positively: “Well, excellent news! Significant sanctions are finally falling for illegal telemarketing and teleselling activities, even if many, many more would be needed” says Massimiliano Dona, president of the National Union Consumers. “It is shameful, however, that the problem of wild marketing is still unsolved and that after exactly 4 years from the entry into force of the law that should have saved us from harassing phone calls, nothing has substantially changed. Not to mention the fact that it still hasn’t there is the new Register of Oppositions “concludes Dona.
The company specified its position in a note released in the evening in which “it states that it has always acted in full compliance with the law, that it is extraneous to the conduct of” unwanted calls “and that it has always applied risk prevention measures for management of telephone channels for commercial purposes. In particular, Enel Energia found that the fraudulent phenomenon of the existence of abusive operators – who pretend to be agents of Enel Energia in order to get the interlocutor’s attention, and then offer during the telephone call contracts with competing third parties – exposes the Company itself to significant damage also in terms of image. Enel Energia, which has always been committed to improving the quality of the service offered and ensuring the confidentiality of its customers’ data, adopts all technical measures and organizational to ensure full compliance with the regulatory provisions on data protection (GDPR), further denouncing circumstances the unlawful circulation of personal data used by third parties for unfair commercial practices and providing full cooperation to the institutions involved. Enel Energia, in order to prevent the abusive use of its name, from May 2017 interrupted the telephone sales activities of the contracts, giving ample notice to customers. Subsequently, this channel was reopened only to give safety continuity to the sales activities during the pandemic in progress, which affected the possibility of physical meeting with customers. Despite all the reports on which the investigation was based referred to the period in which the company did not make phone calls, the Guarantor decided to impose the sanction, in the absence of evidence and only on the basis of the presumption that the calls came from appointed operators from Enel, for the sole fact that the telephone operators had declared so. The Company – concludes the note – will evaluate every subsequent action “.