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Spain: Misuse of computerised data

01 September 1996

In 1995 The Data Protection Agency (APD) issued 508 notices of sanction upholding complaints from the public, including 190 relating to the improper use of personal data. In the first five months of 1996 the number of complaints giving rise to sanctions rose to 878. The greatest frequency of non-compliance with the standards was found in the bad debt registers of several banks and financial institutions. The APD has decided to set up a systematic oversight of those types of data which it has determined "deserving of particular vigilance and checking"; these include solvency and bad debt files in the banking and finance sector, hospital files and those of the state security agencies. The refusal of the Civil Guard to submit its drug trafficking and terrorism files to the APD's inspection led to the Agency launching a legal action against them in July. The APD informed the government that if it persisted with that exception in making its obligatory report to the relevant EU authorities, the result would be that the Spanish police forces would be unable to participate in the Schengen Information System, which requires compliance with existing legislation on data protection. On 24 September the Civil Guard finally complied, permitting the APD to inspect its computer archives and thus avoiding a legal battle.