Poland might be gearing up to further tighten its grip on the provision of unlicensed gambling services by accessing and using personal data of local Internet users, according to a Tuesday publication by local NGO Panoptykon Foundation (Fundacja Panoptykon).
Poland re-regulated its gambling market in the spring of 2017. Under the country’s new Gambling Act, international sports betting operators can apply for a license from the Minsitry of Finance and operate in a regulated enviornment. However, the newly regulated market has not proved to be extremely popular with major companies as enormous taxes on betting turnover have been driving these away from Poland. As many as 11 betting licenses have been issued by local regulators since the implementation of the new regulatory framework last April.
On the other hand, local customers have been targeted heavily by unregulated operators, from which the Polish Finance Ministry has been actively trying to purge the local gambling space. The Ministry has compiled a blacklist of unlicensed betting operators luring Polish gamblers. The list has been growing rapidly and curently includes nearly 3,000 domains. Under the newly adopted Gambling Act, Polish Internet service providers must make sure that blacklisted websties are blocked from the country.
Accoridng to Panoptykon Foundation’s article from Tuesday, the Polish Finance Ministry is planning to roll out further measures to prevent the unregulated provision of gambling services. The Ministry’s crackdown will actually extend into other industries, as well, the NGO pointed out.
Central Register for Violators and Controversial Data Access
Panoptykon Foundation said yesterday that there have been indications the Ministry of Finance together with the Financial Supervision Authority, the Minsitry of Infrastructure, and the Chief Sanitary Inspector are planning to create a central register that would include illegal gambling websites as well as any Internet operations that have to do with drugs, illegal financial services, and unlicensed transport services such as Uber.
It is also understood that the involved Ministries and authorities will be accessing personal data about customers of local Internet services providers in a bid to monitor whether blacklisted websites, including gambling-oriented ones, are accessed by nationals and whether ISPs are successfully blocking any unregulated operations.
While any such moves are yet to be confirmed by the Polish government, Panoptykon Foundation pointed out yesterday that there certainly might be another way to prevent unregulated operations than accessing Internet users’ personal data.
Established in 2009, the Panoptykon Foundation is a non-governmental organization that aims to protect basic human freedoms and rights against threats and risks modern surveillance technologies pose.
The organization said on Tuesday that it considers the newly emerged matter of Polish Internet users potentially having their personal data accessed extremely important and that it would follow developments closely.
