Walls are closing in on Pornhub and its GDPR violations
Table of Contents
Press Release – At last, in Cyprus, the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection is taking action against Pornhub’s systemic violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), just as we requested a few months ago in our previous press statement. The outcome of this trial will transform business models of the porn industry forever and Pornhub might be shutdown within the entire European Union, if it will not comply.
We have received written confirmation from representatives of the Cypriot DPA that the #StopDataPorn complaint filed there in August 2022 has now been integrated into a maxi-investigation targeting the porn tech-giant. The headquarters of Aylo in Cyprus have been visited by the Commissioner, and the final decision on the trial is now taking shape. The email exchange between the Cypriot DPA and our lawyers is enclosed below, redacted to safeguard anonymity.
According to our lawyers in Cyprus, from the law firm Emilianides Katsaros LLC:
“It is a very positive development to see our complaint being examined as part of the wider official investigation conducted by the Office of the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection. This signifies that what has been put forward via our complaint will be taken into account along with any outcomes of her Office’s investigation, thus ensuring a holistic address to the data protection malpractice of Pornhub ”
- Mr. Sotiris Pafitis, lawyer at EK LLC.
The Cypriot Parliament has also recently scheduled a hearing of one of its parliamentary committee to investigate Cyprus’ rampant porn industry. This new inquiry will target Pornhub, along with other porn giants like XHamster, Stripchat, Faphouse, and Virtual Taboo, based on the island.
Meanwhile, the DPA in Italy is now transmitting to the Cypriot Commissioner the file of the second #StopDataPorn complaint submitted there in June 2023, containing the results of the parallel investigation conducted by the Garante on behalf of our claimant. This is the result of our motion to escalate the entire European strategic litigation before the DPA in Cyprus, as this is the lead authority for Aylo’s GDPR compliance.
Besides its problems with GDPR, the tech-giant Aylo in the European Union is also facing challenges with compliance to the new Digital Services Act (DSA), whose obligations for Very Large Online Platforms are now fully enforceable for Pornhub since April 21st. These obligations include submission of risk assessment reports, mitigation measures to address systemic risks linked to the platform scale, transparency obligations related to advertisers and content moderation on the website, and providing access to data for researchers.
We welcome this renewed collaboration among European DPAs and are looking forward to the soon-to-be-delivered final decision on Pornhub’s violations of data protection law.
#StopDataPorn is a collective initiative calling on users and authorities to take immediate action and address the exploitative practices of porn platforms. This users’ data violation is not the sole abuse done by Pornhub, who is already involved in scandals about monetizing from sexual assault videos and letting children access its adult material.
Contact #
📬 please@stopdataporn.org 📬 #