(Reuters) – Italy’s data protection authority fined Delivery Hero 5 million euros ($5.20 million) on Friday for illegally processing the personal data of more than 35,000 riders registered on its digital platform.
The regulator also banned Foodinho – a unit of Spanish start-up Glovo, which Delivery Hero bought in 2022 – from using its riders’ biometric data, such as facial recognition, to verify identity.
An investigation by the regulator revealed that riders’ geolocation data was transferred to third-party companies without their knowledge, the statement said. Until August 2023, this happened even when the riders were not working.
The watchdog asked Foodinho to make a series of changes, including the messages it sends to riders about deactivating or blocking their account and activating an icon that indicates when GPS is on, allowing it to be turned off when it’s not. work.
The investigation followed a report that a driver’s account had been deactivated following a fatal 2022 van crash, as well as findings from IT experts.
Despite Foodinho being fined in 2021, significant breaches of privacy laws were uncovered, the regulator added.
Foodinho was not immediately available for comment.
(1 dollar = 0.9611 euros)
(Reporting by Michele Stasio; Editing by Giulia Segreti and Susan Fenton)