Great Britain: Data protection officers raise serious allegations against gambling providers

Data protection has always been a big topic on the Internet. Although the techniques used for the highest level of security are continuously developed and every gap created is closed as soon as possible, incidents in which the technology is powerless.

Specifically, if more or less deliberately violates the specifications – not infrequently with an unfair background. The British data protection authority Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is currently required to comply with a complaint, according to the provider of Online gaming are said to have operated massive data abuse. Among other things, with the aim of binding or getting back at risk of gambling addiction.

Clean up gambling is based on expert Wolfie Christl

The player protection organization Clean Up Gambling, which, among other things, wants to have found, among other things, that the provider Sky Bet uses a tracking technology that can be used to create very detailed behavior profiles of players as part of a study. The data collected in this way would be passed on to third parties, primarily for advertising purposes on Facebook, Google and Microsoft.

The cooperating online marketing service provider Signal, for example, is said to have collected extensive data about individuals, for example in the form of 186 attributes that were calculated using various techniques and enabled an optimized use of advertising. In this way, the recipients of the data received extensive information about the user behavior.

CLEAN UP Gambling also refers to a report by the Austrian data protection expert Wolfie Christl, according to a report by the “Financial Times”, who was already in his study published in January “Digital Profiling in the Online Gambling Industry” had come to the knowledge that large gaming providers would collect and pass on data on a large scale.

Not just Sky Bet suspected

Sky Bet, part of the world’s largest gambling group Flutter Entertainment, is now in the pillory, but the player protection experts are convinced that similar technologies in the industry are widespread. Clean up gambling therefore calls for a nationwide review of both the Gambling providers as well as their advertising partners.

Representing Clean Up Gambling, director Matt Zarb-Cousin found clear words in the “Financial Times”: “This is the sharp end of data abuse. We speak of addiction, people who lose huge sums of money, and of profil creation that is used to worsen this situation. This is not like selling garden tools on the Internet. We’re talking about something that makes very, very addicted. “

Next punishment for flutter?

Flutter Entertainment did not want to leave the allegations uncommented and emphasized in a statement in relation that very sensitive data on the financial strength of customers would be collected not to have any access to the relevant information. In addition, Flutter emphasized that the advertising connected in cooperation with various partners was controlled in such a way that endangered players were not specifically addressed.

Partner Signal supported Flutter’s announcements and explained that data collected was primarily used to improve processes and to promote a responsible gambling.

Now the ICO is responsible for whether Sky Bet and other providers of data abuse have been guilty. If the data protection authority comes to a corresponding conclusion, Flutter threatens a new punishment. As early as February, the company was sentenced to pay a fine of £ 1.7 million because marketing emails were sent to users who had previously contradicted the reception of such messages.