FRANCE — Focus on consumer online protection: more investigations ahead

 

On January 6, 2011, the Secretary of State in charge of consumption matters, the data protection authority (CNIL) and the authority in charge of competition regulation and consumer protection (DGCCRF) signed a cooperation protocol to improve the protection of consumers’ personal data in the e-commerce environment.

DGCCRF is an administrative body under the authority of the Ministry of Finance with the mission to ensure a fair competition between businesses and to regulate the market in order to protect consumers’ economic rights.

As a result of this agreement, DGCCRF agents will receive special training from the CNIL on data protection matters and will add several data protection issues to their investigation checklist, such as: the unlawful collection of personal data (e.g., collection of sensitive data without the prior consent of data subjects); unfair collection of data (e.g., without prior notice of data subjects); collection of disproportionate data, and lack of security measures.

They will refer non-compliance to the CNIL via an agreed upon procedure. The CNIL will then be able to take action on the basis of the findings by using the investigation and sanction powers granted by the Data Protection Act. The CNIL investigation department, which currently includes 14 agents, will expand to include DGCCRF staff—3,000 investigation agents and a specialized department in charge of e-business.

In 2010, the DGCCRF investigative agents who specialized in e-commerce conducted nearly 10,000 investigations into 8,000 Web sites.

The year 2011 will likely see increases in data protection investigations, sanctions and compliance in the e-business arena.