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Austria: Privacy violated in election campaign?

01 November 2002

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In September a German news programme reported on dubious election campaign practices by the German conservative party after they contracted a market firm to collect personal data on possible voters to improve their election chances. The move was to possibly gear their campaign towards the dominant life-style preferences of the electoral districts (see Statewatch Bulletin vol 12 no 5). A similar practice is now thought to have taken place in Austria, where the Austrian data protection association Arge Daten has received numerous complaints about unwanted phone calls by a firm called IFES. Although the practice of so-called 'cold calls' (the random telephoning of unknown persons) is not illegal for all but commercial purposes, IFES also uses numbers not registered in the telephone directory, which violates the expressed wish to personal privacy. Furthermore, the identity of IFES's contractor, which apparently is researching into the "living situation in Austria and how it is to be improved", is not given out by the market research firm on "data protection" grounds. See www.argedaten.at for more details

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