Baltic authorities to inspect personal data processing in short-term vehicle rental

2022-07-25
BNS/TBT Staff

TALLINN - On Monday, the supervisory authorities of the Baltic states are launching a coordinated preventive supervision on the compliance of personal data processing in the field of short-term vehicle rental.

The implementation of coordinated supervision, with the aim of developing recommendations for improving the processing and protection of personal data, follows from the 2021 meeting of the SAs of the Baltic states, during which the authorities agreed that sectoral monitoring will be organized in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 2022.

The SAs have agreed that supervision will be carried out on enterprises offering the rental of short-term vehicles, including electric scooters, whose main recipient of services are natural persons. Primary, merchants whose principal place of business is located in one of the Baltic states and who offer their services throughout the Baltics will be monitored. In respect to its decision-making independence, each SA may extend the scope of the supervision to the activities of enterprises who are also active in only one member state.

The aim of these supervision actions is to monitor the compliance of the application of the General Data Protection Regulation, thus proactively addressing potential threats to citizens' personal data in a sector that has seen its importance increase rapidly in the daily lives of many citizens over the last three years.

The information obtained as a result of the supervision will be analyzed in a coordinated manner and the SAs will decide on possible further supervisory measures by developing good practice recommendations for enterprises providing such and similar services to natural persons.

In September 2021, during the meeting of the Baltic states' personal data protection supervisory authorities, it was concluded that closer cooperation between supervisory authorities will contribute to more efficient and consistent supervision of the processing of personal data in the Baltic states.