The Austrian Post has to pay a fine of 18 million euros in the scandal surrounding the collection and sale of customer data on party affinity. The country's data protection authority justified the decision with violations of data protection regulations, as the Ministry of Justice announced. The Post wants to appeal the decision.
The search platform Addendum had reported in January, the Austrian Post sells records of about three million customers with name, address, age and gender to other companies for marketing purposes. With 2.2 million customers also the "party affinity" is indicated. These records would be sold to parties so that they could better reach potential followers.
Data protection organizations had sharply criticized Austrian Post. The Austrian Data Protection Authority initiated a procedure. Swiss Post stated that it would refrain from collecting and selling customer data on "party affinity" in the future.
