Failure to respect the rights of individuals: The CNIL fined EXTIA 300 000 EUR

Legal Reference(s): Article 12 (Transparent information, communication and modalities for the exercise of the rights of the data subject), Article 17 (Right to erasure ‘right to be forgotten’) EXTIA, which specialises in IT and engineering, recruits consultants for various technical projects from its client companies.  In 2024, the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) received several complaints from former employees or candidates, relating to difficulties encountered in exercising their right to erasure or ‘right to be forgotten’. With a view to investigating these complaints, and also in the context of the Coordinated Enforcement Framework action on the ‘Right to erasure’ launched on the initiative of the European Data Protection Board in 2025, an audit of EXTIA was carried out in April 2025. It identified breaches of several obligations under the GDPR regarding transparency and respect for individuals’ rights. Of the 265 requests for erasure received by the company in 2024, the majority of which came from candidates and, occasionally, former employees, more than three quarters had not been dealt with or had not been dealt with satisfactorily. Failure to process erasur...