CNIL to conduct 200 online inspections this year

France’s Data Protection Authority, the CNIL, says that it will use its new power to conduct online inspections this year, and generally increase the number of inspections (see the international e-news on 31st March 2014). Overall, the DPA aims to carry out some 550 inspections in 2014, out of which 350 will be visits to the organisations and another 200 will be online inspections. In 2013 the CNIL carried out 414 inspections.

The CNIL will concentrate on looking at practices that involve personal data of a large number of French citizens: income tax, online payments, CCTV, online dating etc.

The CNIL gained its new power to carry out online inspections under consumer protection law in March this year. This new power allows the CNIL to remotely detect and react to data breaches on the Internet. The findings will be recorded and may result in enforcement action.