Today, the French data protection authority has fined Fnac Darty (one of the largest electronics retailers in France) €7 million for illegally using third-party trackers on its mobile app without consent. The fine is the result of a noyb complaint filed in 2023. In addition to France, Fnac Darty is also active in countries such as Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, and Switzerland.
Background. In September 2023, noyb filed three complaints in France against the real estate app SeLoger, the fitness app MyFitnessPal and the electronics retail chain Fnac Darty. The reason: The companies’ apps illegally accessed and shared users’ personal data with third parties for sophisticated analytics as soon as the apps were opened. Users didn’t even have the choice to consent to or prevent the sharing of their data. Such extensive data collection allows the profiling of users in order to show them personalized ads and marketing campaigns to increase the revenue for the mentioned companies.
CNIL investigation into Fnac. Following these noyb complaints, the French data protection authority (CNIL) launched its own investigation into Fnac Darty in March 2024 – and confirmed the findings. According to the CNIL, Fnac Darty was “using a tracker – the placement of which the users had not consented to – which, amongst other things, collected their browsing history in order to display product recommendations to them and to train its recommendation algorithm.” The CNIL restated that the processing of personal data for targeted advertising requires users’ consent. In this case, it confirmed that Fnac Darty had tracked users without obtaining their consent.
Lisa Steinfeld Leiser, data protection lawyer at noyb: "The CNIL made once again very clear that processing people's data for personalised advertising requires consent. While this kind of tracking remains a widespread practice, we hope that this decision sets the tone for cases of illegal tracking.”
€7 million fine. Based on these findings, the CNIL now fined Fnac Darty €7 million. According to the authority, the electronics retailer has failed to comply with its legal obligation to ask people for their consent. In case of non-compliance with the decision, Fnac Darty faces a daily penalty of €10,000.
