The city of Rome received a large fine on Thursday from an Italian data protection policeman for inserting the names of women who had abortions on fetal graves without their consent.
At the end of September 2020, the discovery of the graves of aborted fetuses buried in the Flaminio cemetery without the knowledge of their parents, whose names appeared on the graves, sparked the indignation of associations for the defense of women’s and women’s rights. involved. , who denounced the violation of their privacy.
In protest against the ban on publishing data related to pregnancy termination, the Personal Data Protection Authority decided to impose a fine of 176,000 euros on the city of Rome and an additional fine of 239,000 euros on AMA, the public company responsible for the management of cemeteries. from the Italian capital.
In a press release, the body also issued a warning to the Basic Health Insurance Fund in Rome, which had breached privacy-affecting data protection law by sending the identity of each fetus of a miscarried woman to the World Anti-Doping Agency.
In addition to these penalties, the authority also ordered the D.C. Health Insurance Fund to “not report ‘explicitly’ the identity on transfer permits and on statutory medical certificates,” suggesting that this data be hidden or encrypted to avoid the possibility of identifying a woman who carried an aborted fetus.
The credit union must notify the Arab Monetary Fund of the selection and adoption of such measures within two months.
Elisa Ercole, president of the Association for the Defense of Women’s Rights “Deverenza Donna”, responded, quoted by the Italian agency AGI.
The scandal erupted in September 2020 after a woman who had an abortion discovered her name on a cross in the Flaminio cemetery, posting a photo on Facebook that went viral.
Similar practices were later discovered in a cemetery in the northern city of Brescia.
