Associated Press reports that Greece’s Finance Ministry has been fined €150,000 ($200,000) by the privacy watchdog for allegedly failing to protect data on millions of taxpayers. The data ended up in the hands of private companies, or in some cases, in the hands of data thieves.
The Data Protection Authority said Friday the ministry hadn’t taken sufficient steps to protect its databases from unauthorized access.
That led to a “particularly large” breach of personal data, the authority said in a statement, and gave the ministry two months to improve security.
Last year, police arrested a man on suspicion of having stolen 9 million personal data files from the ministry, in what is believed to be Greece’s biggest breach of private information.
And in January, police charged three men after tax data for millions of Greeks were found in an Athens company’s offices.
I had previously noted the theft of the 9 million files as it was almost Greece’s entire citizenry. The January arrests are news to me and I’m still trying to find more information on that. So far, I haven’t located a copy of the DPA’s statement on the fine, but I’ll keep looking. If you’ve seen it, please let me know where.
what a load of BS.In greece there is no such thing as a watchdog,not a genuine one anyway.these are only to comply with EE requirements in order not to stop fundning this goverment that keeps greek people hostages and sells out the resources and the public property to the cleptocrats bankers etc.This is a game that the people are excluded to say the least …..it is between interests ,private and corporate that have nothingto do with the realk greek state ,that actually doesnt exist right now if it ever did…..
Thanks for sharing your insights on this. I had searched for more coverage in English and couldn’t find anything. There’s much about it all that I don’t understand – including the details of the alleged data thefts. If you have any additional info or links to sources on this, I’d appreciate it.