AIMA, Portugal’s agency for integration, migrations and asylum is in the doghouse today for having published the personal data of more than 500 immigrants applying for legalisation in this country.
According to Público, the slip-up came in a poorly constructed email to 547 immigrants. As the paper explains, AIMA should, ideally, have sent out 547 emails. But (presumably to save time), it opted instead to send out one mail to 547 recipients, all clearly visible in the address box.
As the paper stresses, it wasn’t even a very clear email. It told recipients to present themselves at the Porto mission structure, between 7pm and 9pm (not mentioning any particular day), explaining that the objective was to “re-do biometric data”.
On the list however were people whose biometric data (photograph and fingerprints) had never been collected before by AIMA.
The other (probably chief) concern was that this was a long list of immigrants’ names and email addresses that could, potentially, fall into the wrong hands, given that this country possesses a “strong anti-immigration movement”.
Thus, the is way open for AIMA to be fined for violating data protection regulations, albeit no one appears to have filed any kind of complaint so far: the story is one ‘powered by Público’ which has consulted a legal expert who gave his opinion.
Other media outlets following up on the story have contacted AIMA for ‘explanations’, but so far received no response.
Source material: SIC Notícias/ Público
