The case concerns the offender that created a fake social network profile by using victim’s personal data. In such case, this conduct constitutes an offence according art.167 Italian Privacy Code. In fact, the creation of a social network profile entails a persistent and illegitimate use of personal data.
Sentence n. 42565/2019 states some of the main aspects concerning such practice. First, the Court specified that the unlawful behavior was not just the average use of personal data to create the social network profile. Specifically, the illegitimate disclosure and processing of personal data concerns data included within “gender” box; which constitutes a sensitive personal data according to GDPR.
Moreover, the Courts has recognised the unlawful data processing as permanent. For this reason, Italian Privacy Code incriminates whoever, with the intent of earning a profit or damaging other individuals, proceeds with personal data processing in violation of art. 18,19,23,123,126 and 130 of Italian Privacy Code.
Such conduct, according to Italian Law interpretation, in considered permanent. In fact, contrarily to other offences, where the unlawful conduct takes place and finishes when the event occurs. In this case, the illegitimate effects arising from the unlawful data processing will continue. In conclusion, the creation of a social network profile by unlawfully process individuals’ personal data is characterized by a constant offence