Italian energy firms fined for opaque AI customer scoring
Italy's data protection authority fined four energy companies a total of over 7 million euros for using automated AI scoring systems to deny customers electricity and gas contracts without transparent explanations or right to appeal. The systems violated GDPR requirements for automated decision-making on personal data.
What happened
Hera Comm, EstEnergy, Cerved and Experian used an automated scoring system to evaluate whether citizens could obtain electricity and gas contracts. Citizens whose applications were rejected received no explanation of the reasons or information about the data used to calculate their scores, and had no opportunity to contest the decisions.
Reported impact
Citizens reported being denied energy supply contracts based on negative scores assigned by the algorithm, without receiving clear explanations or recourse.
Index analysis
The Garante for data protection found that the automated decision-making violated GDPR requirements for transparency and verifiability in decisions affecting people's rights. The authority determined that decisions made by automated systems affecting fundamental rights must be comprehensible, transparent and verifiable.
Governance controls
The Garante imposed fines of 5.8 million euros on Hera Comm and 1.4 million euros on EstEnergy for violations of GDPR in the use of automated scoring systems.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.