Cityscoot, an electric scooter rental service operating in Paris and Nice, has just been pinned by the CNIL. The institution criticizes the operator for having permanently geolocated its customers. The company was fined €125,000.
While the CNIL validated the digital vital card project in February 2023 (under certain conditions at least), the institution has just rendered a new verdict.
On his official sitethe National Commission for Computing and Liberties announces this Tuesday, March 28, 2023 a financial penalty against Cityscoot. For neophytes, it is a electric scooter rental serviceactive in some major European cities such as Milan, Turin, or Nice and Paris in France.
As part of its action to control the geolocation functions offered by certain services, the CNIL has decided to look into the case of Cityscoot. These verifications related in particular to the data collected during the rental of a scooter.
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The CNIL accuses Cityscoot of permanently geolocating users
During his examinations, the web constable found that the operator geolocated each scooter in circulation every 30 seconds. Even better, the company retained history of all trips and stops. For its part, Cityscoot justifies this practice for various reasons. Indeed, these data are collected for:
- keep track of traffic violations
- to handle customer complaints
- for technical support and assistance to users (in particular to call the emergency services in the event of an accident)
- for claims and theft management
Nevertheless, and in the eyes of the CNIL, these reasons do not justify the collection of such frequent and precise geolocation data. For the institution, it is a serious invasion of user privacyinsofar as it can reveal their location as well as the places they frequent.
In addition, the CNIL also noted breaches of the GDPR in three contracts concluded with Cityscoot subcontractors. Faced with these many differences, the Commission has therefore decided to impose a fine of €125,000 on Cityscoot. It should be noted that this decision was taken in collaboration with the Italian and Spanish authorities, countries where Cityscoot is in operation. As a reminder, in December 2022 the CNIL fined Free €300,000 for failing to secure user data.
