Email containing personal and health information is protected by privacy law and cannot be forwarded without consent, Italian Data Protection Authority holds

On April 23, 2015, the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) held that the privacy of the sender of an e-mail containing her personal and health information is violated when the email is forwarded without her consent.

In this case, an employer of an IT company sent a promotional email to some franchisors of a real estate company. The whole e-mail (personal and health information included) was then forwarded as an attachment to several other franchisors of the real estate company. The DPA deemed that the forwarding violated the sender’s privacy and that her consent should have been obtained before divulging her personal data.

The full text of the order n. 3966213 (Trattamento di dati personali da parte di un franchisor), issued on April 23, 2015 is available (in Italian) at http://www.garanteprivacy.it…                                   Open Pdf

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