State Institute for Drug Control fined for violation of personal data laws

The Office for Personal Data Protection has fined the State Institute for Drug Control 2.3 million crowns for collecting sensitive data on patients. The institute was found to have recorded data from personal prescriptions without permission and to have failed to have stored the information in a secure way. The office has called the case the largest collection of illegally obtained data it had ever encountered, with 200,000 drug prescriptions filed a day for a period of six months. The database was established at a cost of 170 million crowns and was originally intended to combat the production of narcotics and protect patients from inappropriate combinations of medicines.