New intervention by the Privacy Guarantor to counter the phenomenon of wild telemarketing. For making illegal promotional calls, the Authority ordered Sky Italia to pay a fine of over 3 million and 200 thousand euros and prohibited further processing of data for promotional purposes using lists acquired from other companies. The company was also prescribed various measures to comply with European and national legislation. This was announced by the Authority itself.
The provision of the Guarantor – explains the Authority’s note – comes at the end of a complex investigation activity launched following dozens of reports and complaints from people who complained of having received unwanted phone calls, made to promote the services offered by Sky, both directly and through the call centers of other companies.
Many critical issues were encountered, in particular the making of promotional calls without information and without consent, using unverified lists, acquired from other companies. Unlike what Sky believed, in fact, the consent to communicate their data to third parties given by users to the company providing the lists did not authorize it to use the names for promotional purposes.
To carry out the telemarketing activity correctly, Sky should have provided the user with its own information at the beginning of the phone call, also explaining the origin of the data and – only after obtaining consent – proceed with the commercial proposal. But above all Sky, underlined the Guarantor, should, before carrying out any operation, check through its black lists that the people to contact had not expressed their opposition to receiving advertising calls for its products.
Among the other measures imposed, the Guarantor has prescribed to Sky, in order to facilitate the exercise of the rights by the interested parties, to include among the reception channels of the declarations of opposition to the processing, also the Pec address indicated in the register of companies, address that until now the Company had not considered a valid contact point for privacy. Sky will also have to appoint the suppliers, who carry out promotional activities on its behalf, responsible for all phases of the processing: this also in order to reiterate that the Company, as owner, has the obligation to supervise their work and verify the correct management of promotional contacts. In determining the amount of the sanction, the Authority took into account the seriousness of the violations found, which refer to “system” conduct rooted in corporate procedures and the fact that Sky, which has been present on the Italian market for many years, should have set their basic choices in compliance with the privacy legislation.