German auto giant Volkswagen has agreed to pay 1.1 million euros ($1.1 million) on the grounds that the camera in one of its test vehicles recorded without the knowledge of nearby drivers and violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The fine, announced by the Lower Saxony Data Protection Authority on Tuesday, July 27, 2022, marks the European Union's first breach of data privacy legislation for Volkswagen. The company agreed to pay the fine.
The regulator described the alleged violations as "of low importance" and noted that Volkswagen promptly rectified the shortcomings.
In 2019, a Volkswagen vehicle testing the functionality of the driver assistance system to prevent traffic accidents was stopped near Salzburg by the Austrian police, according to the Data Protection authority. There, attendants noticed cameras in the vehicle recording nearby traffic for error analysis, among other causes.
At issue was that the vehicle did not contain messages to inform other drivers that it was recording, who would control this data, and where and for how long.
The regulator's investigation also found issues with the contract with the service provider conducting the research trips and the absence of a data protection impact assessment, resulting in violations of Articles 28 and 35 of the GDPR, respectively.
