The investigation of the National Data Protection and Freedom of Information Authority (NAIH) into the left-wing SMS campaign preceding the parliamentary elections has been completed. DatAdat previously wrote that there is a discrediting campaign against them.
The report of the National Data Protection and Freedom of Information Authority (NAIH) has been prepared in connection with the data management carried out in connection with the mass campaign SMS sending on March 29, 2022, Magyar Nemzet wrote .
In its report, the NAIH established a violation of the law, but at the same time, it is conducting further procedures in relation to both the foreign SMS-sending companies and the operators commissioned by the left.
There is no indication in the report that the two threads are connected. So after almost two years, it is still not possible to see clearly in the case.
The article reminds us that before the 2022 election, the data protection authority received more than a hundred reports regarding the SMS campaign promoting the opposition. The whistleblowers complained that on March 29, 2022, they received unsolicited text messages with political content from various phone numbers to their personal mobile numbers, which they did not disclose.
Attila Péterfalvi, the president of NAIH, also received such an SMS.
By deciphering the contractual chains, the data protection authority reached the identification of the persons responsible for data management through a number of intermediaries.
The contractual chain revealed by the data protection authority. Source: naih.hu
The mass political calls were made through the telephone service providers, call centers and intermediary agents providing the calling telephone numbers included in the complaints.
The data protection authority stated regarding the role of the DatAdat group of companies linked to Gordon Bajnai: "In addition to the companies DatAdat Professional Kft. and Datadat GmbH, according to the statements of Datadat GmbH, Datadat OÜ also participated in other political marketing campaigns that are not currently under investigation.
Although the merger was denied during the procedure, the domain and country code of the e-mail addresses of the employees of Datadat GmbH provided in the annex to the commission contracts are »@datad.at«.
which is the same as the domain and country code of the e-mail address used by DatAdat Kft. and Datadat OÜ. In addition, the owners and managers of Datadat GmbH, DatAdat Kft. and Datadat OÜ also overlap."
The NAIH also tried to find out which specific actors technically handled the mass texting. When asked about the phone numbers, the telephone service providers stated that all the messages were related to BitMessaging Kft., which provides mass texting services for domestic and foreign customers.
According to the authority's opinion
even within the European Union, it may raise issues of data sovereignty and national security if the personal data of a large number of Hungarian stakeholders, including the political opinions of them, is unnecessarily stored and processed abroad,
while it could also be solved within Hungary.
DatAdat's previous reaction HERE .
Cover photo: Former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai at the meeting of the national political council of the Együtt-PM on October 19, 2014. (Photo: MTI/Zsolt Szigetváry)
