The Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, Heiko Maas, had already announced on 11 February 2014 at the conference on "Saver Internet Day 2014" that consumer protection associations would be enabled to issue warnings against data protection violations by companies. We had already reported on this
Now the Federal Cabinet has passed the draft of a law to improve the civil enforcement of consumer-protection provisions of data protection law .
In future, consumer associations are to be able to take action against companies by way of injunctive relief if they violate data protection law in areas relevant to consumers.
The draft law enables entitled bodies to take action against the unlawful collection, processing and use of consumer data by entrepreneurs with claims for injunctive relief if entrepreneurs unlawfully collect, process or use consumer data for the purposes of advertising, market and opinion research, the operation of a credit agency, the creation of personality and user profiles, address trading, other data trading or for comparable commercial purposes.
Companies and entrepreneurs must therefore immediately ensure that the data protection regulations are strictly adhered to and observed in their own companies. Otherwise, in addition to the already possible measures of the state supervisory authorities (including fines of up to € 300,000), there is a threat of cost-intensive warnings in the future.
Since we often find with clients that data protection law is only "casually" observed in companies, companies should immediately review the data protection concept and its implementation in their own company with their data protection officers.
Our lawyers will be happy to answer any questions you may have on this topic.
Source: Press release of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection
Goldberg Attorneys at Law 2015
Attorney at Law Michael Ullrich, LL.M. (Information Law)
Specialist lawyer for information technology law
E-mail: info@goldberg.de
