French authorities have fined an air freight company for
a string of employee data violations, and for its failure to fully
cooperate with their investigation.
Background
SAF Logistics, a French air freight company linked to a Chinese
parent company, Sinotrans Hongfeng Shanghai Ltd, has recently been
fined €200,000 by the French data protection authority (the
CNIL) in a stern response to the company's breaches of the
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) triggered by internal
recruitment practices.
As is often the case, it was a tip-off that triggered the CNIL
investigation. On 4 August 2020, the CNIL received two complaints
from SAF Logistics employees, reporting that the company had asked
staff wishing to apply for a position within the parent company to
fill in a Chinese-language form. This form requested large amounts
of information on employees' private lives such as their
ethnicity, political party affiliation and family situation.
