Netflix fined by Dutch privacy watchdog over personal data violations

By Sarah Jacob and Cagan Koc

 

Netflix Inc. was fined €4.75 million ($5 million) by the Dutch privacy watchdog over customer data violations. 

The investigation “shows that Netflix did not inform customers clearly enough in its privacy statement about” what it did with their data between 2018 and 2020, the Dutch Data Protection Agency said in a statement on Wednesday.

 

“Furthermore, customers did not receive sufficient information when they asked Netflix which data the company collects about them,” the regulator said.

 

The agency said Netflix has since updated its privacy statement and improved its information provision. 

 

“We have cooperated with the Dutch Data Protection Authority and pro-actively evolved our privacy information to provide even greater clarity to our members,” a Netflix spokesperson said. “We have objected to this decision.”

 

Increasing incidents of data breaches, growing public awareness for privacy, and a series of fines have raised the agency’s profile.

 

The “fines are necessary. They make companies pay attention,” Aleid Wolfsen, the Dutch data protection authority’s chairman, said in an interview in The Hague last week. “If you don’t use the stick, they don’t listen to you, and don’t take you seriously when it comes to prevention or giving guidance,” he said. 

 

The watchdog this year imposed a record €290 million fine against Uber Technologies Inc. for not sufficiently protecting driver data, the highest penalty it has ever issued against a company.

 

“Big technology companies have so much personal data about people and sometimes they illegally exchange them with other” firms, Wolfsen said.