Source: AFP
Two months before Greeks vote in European Parliament elections, a political spam scandal forced one candidate to drop out and authorities to launch an investigation in a case that reignited national concerns about data leaks.
Hundreds of Greeks living in European countries and the United States protested last month after receiving spam emails from EU lawmaker Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou, a member of the ruling conservative New Democracy party.
Two officials resigned over the case and investigations are underway by the Athens prosecutor’s office and the independent Greek data protection agency HDPA.
HDPA president Constantinos Menoudakos told AFP that while the misuse of personal data is not unusual during election campaigns, the scale of the breach is unprecedented.
“HDPA is investigating hundreds of people’s emails that were used” without their consent, Menudakos said.
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Vassilis Sotiropoulos, a lawyer representing several plaintiffs, said he was taking action against the Greek state over the incident.
The case has embarrassed the Greek government at a time when postal voting for the country’s large diaspora is due to be used for the first time in June.
Government officials have sought to stress that voters’ email addresses were improperly exchanged long before postal voting reform was introduced in January and that adequate safeguards have since been put in place.
A high-ranking official of the Ministry of the Interior and the head of New Democracy’s diaspora department resigned over the incident. Asimakopoulou also withdrew her candidacy for the June 9 vote.
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis deflected questions from media and rights groups, saying on Monday that as the case was under investigation, there was “nothing else” to be done at this time.
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“Responsibilities have been taken, there have been resignations, the investigation is ongoing,” he told reporters.
Data protection “essential”
Menoudakos said data protection “is essential for the rule of law”.
“Any breach raises important questions of democracy,” he added, noting that this is the second “major” case in two years.
In 2022, the country was rocked by a scandal involving the illegal wiretapping of dozens of politicians and journalists by cellphone spyware called Predator.
Eleftherios Heliodakis, co-founder of Homo digitalis, a digital rights NGO, said the scale of the email case “has made the public even more aware” of the EU’s general data protection regulations.
During the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, the data watchdog had reprimanded the education ministry for insufficient privacy advice for students using the distance learning platform.
Fines have been imposed in recent years on Greece’s leading voice operator OTE and Piraeus Bank, one of the four largest in the country.
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In a rare move, the data watchdog this week also fined the country’s immigration ministry for data protection breaches at migrant camps under its care.
The independent authority said in a statement that it had found “serious deficiencies” in the ministry’s compliance with data protection rules, without elaborating.
Source: AFP
The watchdog said it reviewed the ministry’s systems for managing digital security and controlling entry-exit to the camps after receiving requests for information from the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee and the UN refugee agency.
It also said there was a “lack of cooperation” from the ministry and that data protection impact assessments “were substantially lacking”.
The ministry was fined 175,000 euros ($189,000) and given three months to comply with the rules, the watchdog said.
Menoudakos said the controls have been achieved despite a 15 percent cut in the authority’s budget between 2020 and 2024, when other countries provide additional funds.
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“Significant staff shortages limit our controls,” he said.
Source: AFP