“It is a very serious mistake because it puts the protection of sensitive data at risk, especially in a very severe movement that witnesses the growth of hatred,” said one of the organizers, Felícia Silva.
As required by law, the movement communicated to the municipality the holding of the concentration through an email signed by three activists, who, in addition to their full name, also provided tax identification numbers, mobile phone numbers, and addresses.
For Felícia Silva, this data already constitutes “sensitive information to be shared via general emails,” let alone the sharing of the personal data of subscribers with more than 30 public and private entities, including hotels, the Diocese, and even a transport company.
“It is a serious situation when, completely negligently and carelessly, the City Hall sends an email to all these entities, copying our email in full to a document from which it creates a PDF, not removing our data,” she criticized.
According to the official, the situation is even more serious when the municipality has at its disposal a service dedicated to data protection and still “also puts the security of the subscribers” of the information sent to the City Council at risk.
Meanwhile, at least two of the subscribers of the concentration sent, in a personal capacity, an email to the Mayor of Faro, questioning Rogério Bacalhau “on the grounds of the legitimacy of the communication” of their personal data.
However, by 15:30, the subscribers had not yet received “any explanation or apology” from the municipality, Felícia Silva said, adding that the illegality will be the subject of a complaint to the National Data Protection Commission.
“The City Hall now has a period of 30 days to respond. If there is no response, or if the response is that there is no justification for what happened, a report to the National Data Protection Commission will follow,” she concluded.
The “Panel supporting Palestine and against genocide in the Gaza Strip” is scheduled for today, starting from the Arco da Vila for a roughly 20-minute route through the center of Faro.
In 2021, the Lisbon City Council, at the time led by Fernando Medina, shared the data of three Russian activists who organized an anti-Putin protest with the Russian embassy itself, with the municipality fined one million euros for the illegal sharing of these data.
The Lusa agency contacted the Faro City Hall but did not receive a timely response.
