AEPD releases 2008 report

Claims rose 45 percent over previous year
The director of the Spanish Agency for Data Protection (AEPD), Artemia Rallo, has released his annual report for 2008. The agency filed 2,362 claims in 2008, an increase of 45 percent over 2007 figures. The sectors garnering the highest number of claims were telecommunications, financial, and video. Complaints related to Internet search engines saw the biggest increase overall.

Director Rallo emphasized that the Internet and video are becoming major challenges in protecting citizens’ privacy and acknowledged that the video issue is an “unstoppable phenomenon.” The agency intends to crack down on the improper posting of videos to YouTube and has already issued two sanctions related to posting videos without the consent of videos‘ subject(s).

• Among decided claims, 630 resulted in punishment, with 535 of those resulting in fines
• The agency levied ?22.6 million in fines in 2008, an increase of 15 percent over the previous year
• The number of complaints surrounding videos tripled to 365
• 75 percent of sanctions were classified as “serious;” 18 percent “mild;” and seven percent “severe”
• The agency received more than 72,000 queries about how to prevent unsolicited ads via fax or SMS