The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) has fined a local councillor 1,000 euro for publishing personal data of third parties on his Facebook profile.
However, he paid 600 euro accepting the two reductions proposed by the AEPD, which are to admit the facts and pay voluntarily.
According to the resolution, the affected party stated that the councillor of his town hall published on Facebook a note from a municipal plenary session in which personal data of him and his wife appeared.
He said he did it with the purpose of “creating helplessness and public lynching” because he not only did it on his personal profile, but he had also shared it in a group of 400 people.
A group that included, according to him, a large number of residents of the municipality. Along with the complaint, he provided various screenshots taken on May 26, 2023. In this publication there was information about a complaint.
The AEPD therefore decided to forward the complaint to both the city council and the councillor so that they could provide an explanation of what had happened.
A response that arrived on August 24 in which the council explained that the complainant had been convicted by a final judgment for a crime of coercion.
They added that, in fact, one of the points to be discussed in the published municipal plenary note was about the possibility of bringing criminal proceedings against him and his wife for false accusations. They also stated that the data that appeared were not sensitive as they were nominal in nature and that they could not be omitted as they were the subject of the debate.
The AEPD recalled that, according to article 4.1 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the display of the name and surname of the complainant, as well as that of his wife, on a Facebook profile constituted the processing of personal data by making the affected parties identifiable.
On the other hand, Article 6 of the GDPR explains various possibilities that legitimise the processing of data without the need for authorisation from the owner. But nothing justifies publication on social networks.
The sanction is not final and can be appealed before the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the National Court.
