Berlin (dpa) – The ProFans alliance has complained about the disrespectful handling of the European football union UEFA with viewer data.
The reason for the criticism is Eintracht Frankfurt’s entry into the Europa League final, the fan organization said. “The tickets sold publicly will be strictly personalized,” it said. “This means that anyone who wants to go to the stadium must reveal their identity to the organizer, even if they only intend to buy a ticket.”
This handling of the data does not meet the provisions of the European General Data Protection Regulation, which is not applicable law in Switzerland. “UEFA also reserves extensive freedom to transmit the data to third parties,” criticized ProFans. This not only includes passing it on to all relevant state authorities on the grounds of maintaining security. This also includes the granting of data access “to any third party at UEFA’s sole discretion in order to prevent illegal activities and the violation of contractual obligations”.
The personal details of the ticket applications included not only name, address and date of birth, but also information such as bank details and e-mail address. “It is quite unprecedented for a company to voluntarily disclose customers’ data to authorities without any wrongdoing on the part of them,” it said.
“UEFA not only reports interested parties to the authorities in a general way, without any specific reason, but in each individual case it is obviously passing on data to a far greater extent than one could think of as justified,” said ProFans spokeswoman Gloria Holborn. “The right to pass it on to any third party remains completely uncontrollable. UEFA is not required to provide specific information on this either at the request of those affected or of a data protection authority.”