The Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman imposed a fine of 1.1 million euro on pharmacy chain Yliopiston Apteekki for data protection decencies, said the Ombudsman Office in a press release on Wednesday.
The authority found the deficiencies in the use of tracking services in the online store of the pharmacy owned by the University of Helsinki.
Data about the transactions was leaked to tracking technology companies including Google and Meta through the website's analytics services and other tracking technologies.
The data leakage took place in various ways such as when customers added medicines to their virtual shopping cart or clicked the purchase button.
The IP addresses and other identifying information of the users were also shared and if a customer was logged into Google or Facebook, the information could have been identifiable to Google or Meta.
The Ombudsman's office started the investigation into the issue following information from a doctoral researcher of the University of Turku.
The investigation took place from May 2018 to September 2022.
The pharmacy later discontinued the use of Google's and Meta's tracking technologies in September 2022, said the Ombudsman Office.
The Yliopiston Apteekki, however, has the rights to appeal to the administrative court against decision.
The Ombudsman Office is also investigating into the similar shortcomings at several other pharmacies now.
- Yliopiston Apteekki
- Fined
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
