Recorded conversations, €2m fine for Clubhouse (which apparently still exists)
The Guarantor sentenced the social network to pay a fine of 2 million euros, in the face of some irregularities ascertained during 2021.
Italy sanctioned Clubhouse . The privacy guarantor sentenced the social network to pay a fine of 2 million euros , in the face of some irregularities ascertained during 2021, when the platform still had 16 million users globally, of which around 100 thousand in Italy .
At the time Clubhouse was perceived as the novelty of the moment, to the point that other social networks – starting with Twitter – were quick to cannibalize its users, copying the possibility of creating rooms dedicated to voice conversations/conferences. Perhaps also for this reason, in the meantime the popularity of the Clubhouse has decreased significantly.
The Guarantor complains about a general situation of lack of transparency on the use of user data , and in particular accused the platform of recording and sharing the content of audio conversations without the explicit consent of the participants. To this must be added other profiling activities for marketing reasons, always in the absence of a specific consent and therefore in violation of the GDPR .
The Guarantor also contests the Clubhouse’s decision to reserve the right to keep the recordings “indefinitely”, without therefore setting a date by which the recordings of the users’ conversations must be destroyed.
For these reasons, Clubhouse was sentenced to pay 2 million euros and to take all necessary steps to stop the conduct alleged against it, starting with the implementation of a system that warns users of the possibility that their conversations may be registered for content moderation purposes.
