Lisbon city council fined for for revealing protesters details to foreign embassies

Last updated on January 21st, 2022 at 06:27 am

Lisbon – As protestors were called off during their protest in Lisbon, authorities took a string stand against them and ended up revealing their details to foriegn embassy. For this, the Lisbon city hall has been fined €1.25m ($1.4m, £1m) for revealing such details.

The council revealing information came forward when the Portugal data commission stated that the mayor’s office was responsible for breaching many crucial protocols. They have committed 225 breaches of demonstrators’ personal data between 2018 and 2021.

These details were shared by the embassies of several countries including that of Russia. The officials have also apologized for breaches. The timing of these revelations was crucial as the violations occurred merely a month before the scandal became public.

The data commissioner stressed that some of the protesters started to raise concern regarding the city council which essentially led them to make the scandal public. The information has been passed about the organizers of the protesters by the mayor’s office.

Since 2012, the mayor’s office reported over 100 breaches and they were not revealed as they were not covered due to being predated as per the introduction of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The report also stated that some of these breaches could also have attacked fines of up to €20m ($23m, £16m) each but it was avoided as the commissioner has denied to impose these fines to the effect of the pandemic on the government funding