Nearly 20,000 customers received an email with recommendations for coping with the drought, which also contained personal data. The CNIL classified this incident as a “measured risk”.
The French company Veolia finds itself in turmoil after the publication of thousands of data on its customers. Names, first names, addresses, telephones, email addresses and contract numbers appear in an email sent on August 12 by the company to 15,927 customers in the Saint-Lô sector and 4,000 subscribers from Hudimesnil and Cérences (Manche). Due to the drought, this email advocates “limit water consumption to essential needsand lists prohibited activities as “car washing», «filling private swimming pools” or “watering vegetable gardens“. But at the end of the text there is an Excel file with the contact details of all the customers concerned.
Lucie, 37, is on the list. This administrative assistant tried to call Customer Service, but a pre-recorded message was looping. “In the evening, I received an email apologizing from Veolia’s Consumers Director, who mentions “an error for this unfortunate shipment” which does not comply with the company’s commitments to its customers, nor with its privacy policy“says Lucy. “It’s not unfortunate, it’s a serious breach“, takes offense at the thirty-year-old, who denounces “extremely impersonal responses from Veolia“.
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Jacky Hébert, president of UFC-Que Choisir de la Manche, wonders howsuch an error may have occurred“and worries”the management of personal data by Veolia“. He is waiting for answers from the company, before, potentially, contacting the CNIL. The National Commission for Computing and Liberties classified the incident as “measured risk“. Shared data may possiblygenerate commercial canvassingif other companies have picked them up.
For its part, Veolia concluded that it was human error and “that its internal procedures will be reviewed, as will the training that will be reinforced within the company and at the national level, so that this does not happen again“. “A crisis unit has also been opened» and the group «will soon deploy a dedicated communication concerning commercial canvassing with good practices“. Veolia also reiterates its “apologies to users“.