If you are a Swisscom Blue TV customer, you have certainly received an email from the operator, or update notices for your Swisscom Box, which require prior acceptance of Google’s terms of use. This is so that you can continue to use this decoder. The condition raises eyebrows among more than one customer, reports today’s “SonntagsZeitung”. Because Google reserves, for example, the right to collect the approximate location of the Box, or the identification number of the device and the customer’s interactions with Google applications.
To those worried about their data, many of whom have expressed themselves on the forums in recent days, Bluewin responds that it is transmitted to Google anonymously. In addition, an internal data protection officer within the company acts as a supervisor and communicates within the framework of his role with the Federal Data Protection Officer, the operator specified.
“Despite everything, the legal situation is challenging,” notes the Sunday newspaper. Thus, at the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM), the supervisory authority, we note that “there are no legal provisions relating to terminals or their operating systems”. The telecommunications law only stipulates that network operators can process customer data without their consent only in a few rare exceptions, such as late payments. Otherwise, the customer’s consent is required or their data must be anonymized. But OFCOM cannot control how this data is transmitted and only intervenes if there are signs or indications of violations of the Telecommunications Act.
Little room for maneuver for customers
The Stiftung für Konsumentenschutz – German-speaking consumer protection – notes that Blue TV customers have little room for maneuver. “They can demand that their box is not updated or that their subscription is canceled,” explains Lucien Jucker, head of data protection. But this runs the risk of no longer being able to use Blue TV. And changing provider is often not the solution, because other operators, such as Yallo TV from Sunrise or Home TV from Salt, also transmit data to third parties.
“Individuals cannot do much against the data collection frenzy of companies,” says Lucien Jucker. From the point of view of consumer protection, it is therefore necessary for the legislator to set limits, he believes.
