Asimakopoulou states email data came from ND party official
A New Democracy MEP who earlier this month said she would not be contesting in the upcoming European Parliament elections following allegations that she violated data protection regulations by sending a mass email to Greek voters living overseas has said that she received the email addresses from a party colleague in late January 2024.
Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou said the email addresses came in digital format from New Democracy’s secretary for diaspora affairs, Nikos Theodoropoulos, who was sacked from his post in the wake of the controversy.
In a fresh email to overseas voters, Asimakopoulou said the data related to 2023 parliamentary elections and included voter serial number; gender; first and last name; father and mother’s name; spouse’s name; date, city and country of birth; and voting address, postal and electronic addresses.
The data did not include tax or social insurance numbers or any other information collected from the registration of overseas voters on the postal voting platform, she said.
Stating she was “sincerely sorry for any legitimate concern I may have unintentionally caused you regarding the source and processing of your personal data,” in her latest message Asimakopoulou attempted to justify the sending of the email, claiming it was permitted under a decision of the Greek Data Protection Authority relating to the elections for lawyer bar associations.
“In view of your reasonable objection to the use of your data, I will follow any decision of the Data Protection Authority to delete your data and will not contact you in the future,” Asimakopoulou said.
“After my honest and frank explanations above, I think any concerns you may have about the security of your data should now disappear,” Asimakopoulou’s email concluded.
