Discord agrees to cooperate following its French fine by the CNIL
Messaging Discord today pledged to cooperate with the CNIL after the French privacy watchdog fined it for breaches of EU data law (GDPR).
The National Commission for Computing and Liberties announced yesterday that it had fined Discord 800,000 euros for various breaches of European legislation on personal data. As it stands, the messaging system has not decided to appeal the decision, but it does not completely close the door. “We are still examining” CNIL’s announcement “to decide on the next steps”, a Discord spokesperson told AFP. But “we are committed to working with regulators around the world, and we are continually updating our product and policies” to comply with local laws, the platform added.
The CNIL notably criticized Discord for continuing to operate when the user of the service clicked on the “X” button, at the top right of the application window, which may seem to indicate a closure. The application actually remained in the background, with the risk that participants in the conversation that had just closed would continue to hear what the user said.
Among the other grievances, the CNIL criticized Discord for using a 6-digit or letter password, a formula that was not robust enough. She also blamed the messaging for keeping more than 2.4 million user accounts open despite having been unused for over 3 years. Discord had measures in place to address these issues during its proceedings.
