The Italian Supervisory Authority (Garante) has acted against a network of telemarketing companies not only by imposing fines but also by physically seizing their databases. We consider the implications of this dramatic sanction.

Background

This action arises out of what the Garante described as “wild telemarketing”. It related to a complicated web of companies who were unlawfully marketing residential energy services with sanctions being imposed on four companies, namely Arnia società cooperativa (for supplying marketing lists), Mas S.r.l and Mas S.r.l.s. (for making marketing calls), and Sesta Impresa S.r.l. (for acting outside its mandate from the relevant energy companies).

The Garante found that these companies operated in the “undergrowth” and used unlawfully produced marketing lists, containing personal data of data subjects who had never given their consent to receive phone calls for marketing purposes in relation to the promotion of certain energy companies’ commercial offers.

Breach and fines

More specifically, each company has been fined for the following GDPR/data protection law infringements:

• Arnia società cooperativa, who were fined Euros 800,000. The Garante concluded they had: (i) created lists containing more than 70,000 contacts of potential clients; (ii) communicated such personal data to Sesta Impresa S.r.l. (and other companies) without providing data subjects with the required privacy notice or having obtained their consent; and (iii) failed to cooperate with the Garante, duly and fully, during the investigation phase.
• Sesta Impresa S.r.l., who were fined Euros 300,000. This was for: (i) processing of personal data on behalf of the energy companies without having been appointed as processor or sub-processor; (ii) failing to appoint its commercial partners ( Mas S.r.l.) as processors authorized to process personal data (as per Article 29 GDPR and art. 2 – quaterdecies of the Italian Privacy Code); (iii) sharing its credentials to access the energy companies’ systems with Arnia società cooperativa, allowing non-authorized accesses; and (iv) processing personal data for marketing purposes without having being appointed as processor as well as for the lack of a proper legal basis that justified this processing.
• Mas S.r.l., who were fined Euros 500,000. This was for (i) using marketing lists without obtaining a proper and valid consent from data subjects or providing them with a privacy notice; (ii) acquiring these marketing lists from several providers, including foreign ones, without having verified the correct collection of the related personal data; and (iii) signing up users to contracts with Enel Energia despite not being appointed as processor or sub-processor. (As a result of the lack of being designated as processor, the Garante has stated that this transfer appeared to have been made by Mas S.r.l. as data controller.)
• Mas S.r.l.s., who were fined Euros 200,000. This was for not having communicated to the data controller the identification of Mas S.r.l. as sub-processor as well as for failing to prepare and make available the record of processing.

Seizure of databases

One of the most striking aspects of this enforcement is the seizure of both the paper and computer systems containing the illegally collected marketing lists.

This is, of course, not a power explicitly provided for under the GDPR as it does not appear in the list of corrective powers in Article 58(2). Instead, this power arises under domestic law in accordance with Article 58(6) which allows Member States to grant additional powers to supervisory authorities. In this case, those powers arise under 166, paragraph 7, of Legislative Decree no. 30 of 2003 June 196 and 20, paragraph 3, of Law no. 689/1981.

Noting that this is a draconian sanction, the Garante justifies its use on the basis that the four companies had set up their operations “in total disregard of the legislation on personal data” and that this was necessary to properly protect data subjects.

Conclusions

The Garante appears to be one of the first supervisory authorities to adopt the drastic sanction of seizure. Alongside the fines issued to the four companies, the seizure of the databases will largely prevent those companies from operating their core business.

This strong enforcement stance echoes the ban to ChatGPT. In that case, the Garante was the first supervisory authority to act on generative AI, highlighting both the risks this technology poses for personal data protection and the fundamental role the supervisory authorities have in regulating new technology. It demonstrates the intention of the Garante to occupy a strategic and leading role at an EU level, marked by the fact that other supervisory authorities took action against ChatGPT immediately after the news of the Italian ban.

The Garante’s action also demonstrates the risks of companies adopting a superficial attitude toward data protection compliance. Han Solo’s position may be: “Never tell me the odds” but that position looks increasing fraught with more muscular enforcement action from supervisory authorities across the EU.

NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Heather Wilson’s passion and leadership for Cameron Art Museum has grown since she was first hired in 2006. Seventeen years later, she is undertaking the role as the museum’s top chief.

READ MORE: Anne Brennan retiring as CAM director after 29 years of service

Monday night, the CAM board of trustees voted unanimously to hire Wilson as executive director. Wilson, promoted in 2019 as deputy director, has been acting as the interim director since Anne Brennan, who worked for CAM for almost three decades, retired in March.

Brennan expanded CAM’s collection to include diverse contemporary artists with North Carolina ties, as celebrated in a recent 60 years retrospective exhibition. She was a mentor to Wilson, educating her on the art world and market at large, as well as showing her the nuances of the 4,000-object permanent collection at the museum.

“Most of all, I learned about graceful leadership from Anne,” Wilson said on a call Tuesday morning. “She’s so kind, so wise. I think she helped me listen to people first.”

Wilson informed CAM staff of her new role at a meeting earlier in the day.

“Just as I couldn’t imagine the museum without Anne Brennan, I cannot imagine this place without Heather,” director of marketing Matt Budd wrote in an email to PCD Tuesday.

Her passion for education, history and arts coincide to strengthen CAM’s future, according to Elizabeth Overton, director of development. That’s not only apparent when it comes to visitors and programming but also to staff and volunteers.

“Heather leads each department at CAM with knowledge, grace, and awareness of what is best for artists, visitors, members, and employees,” Overton wrote in an email. “She pushes us with positive encouragement to get outside of our box, grow within ourselves, and our own career.”

Wilson actually started as a development director and worked her way up the ladder; she is the seventh director to take over the reins at CAM going into its seventh decade of existence.

Her efforts have been recognized beyond CAM staff as well, including the 2021 YWCA Woman of Achievement winner in the arts category and named by WILMA as a “Woman to Watch” in 2020.

CAM has been a stalwart of cultural output since 1962; it was formerly located on Orange Street at St. John’s Museum of Art (in its place now is the Children’s Museum of Wilmington). The art museum relocated to its current campus in the early aughts at the corner of Independence Boulevard and 17th Street.

One of the museum’s biggest challenges is funding, Wilson said. It isn’t supported by local or state money, rather depends solely on donations, grants and memberships; CAM receives 33% earned income, 53% contributions and 14% endowment income.

In the last decade, Wilson said it has strengthened partnerships in the community, growing from 1,000 members in 2011 to 2,000 currently. CAM is the only arts museum in southeastern North Carolina, with attendance that has escalated from 25,000 annually, when Wilson started, to around 62,000 a year now.

Wilson has been central to the museum’s strategic planning process throughout the years, particularly when it comes to procuring grants. She has worked with the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, and PNC Bank.

The latter grant was in support of “Boundless,” a bronze sculpture by Stephen Hayes that portrays 11 soldiers from the United States Colored Troops. CAM also is located on the historical grounds of the Battle of Forks Road, where the USCT fought for their own freedom in the Civil War.

The sculpture was installed two years ago, with Wilson acting as project director. Last year, PNC USCT Park opened in its honor, with live performances and cultural events taking place every spring and fall.

This November an exhibition, “Monument,” will be planned in conjunction with the sculpture and park’s recent installations.

“It is contemporary artists responding to the Civil War,” Wilson said.

Work by Carol Walker, Radcliffe Bailey, and Alison Saar will be included. Saar has done a maquette of the Harlem monument to Harriet Tubman, which will be coming from Princeton University.

“A lot of really well-known contemporary African American artists will be highlighted in that show, too,” Wilson said. “Sonya Clark’s work ‘Monumental Cloth’ is kind of a signature piece for the show.”

“Monumental Cloth, The Flag We Should Know” is a textile of the white flag that flew in the Civil War when the Confederates surrendered at Appomattox. It was known as the Confederate Flag of Truce, yet is the lesser-recognized cultural symbol of the Civil War.

“Stephen’s work is also going to be in that show, but this brings a female point of view,” Wilson said. “‘Boundless’ is very male — and so we’ll have quite a few female artists in this exhibition and I’m really excited about that.”

There will be a homecoming celebration for descendants of the troops during the opening weekend. Currently, CAM has a call out to remaining family members for an oral history that will be used as part of a film her husband, Adam Alfin, is making to show at the opening. Also part of the opening will be Brunswick County native Sherwin Bryant, a professor from Northwestern, who will discuss his research about enslaved people in Brunswick County.

Wilson has helped steer the museum’s outreach into being more inclusive, diverse and accessible to all genders, races, creeds, beliefs and ethnicities. DEIA is part of a national trend for museums currently but has been an organic part of CAM’s output, the new director said. It’s about highlighting community relevance and welcoming and encouraging conversations.

“I think art is this common language — it goes back to cave paintings, right?” Wilson said. “We’ve been trying to express the human experience through art and to connect with other people through art forever. … I think we can connect across lines of differences in a way that can be softer. I think we can we can bring people together who are different through connecting with art in a way that is nonconfrontational, and can allow us to see how we’re all more the same that we are different.”

Wilson points to a recent experience with a CAM visitor viewing the current exhibition, “Place of Encounters/Lugar de Encuentros,” featuring Latinx artists.

“She moved to the United States and has done some translation work for us,” Wilson said. “She got so emotional saying how she feels welcomed here at CAM in a different way than she does at other places in our community.”

Grants also have been secured to help bring in Alzheimer’s patients and their caretakers once a month as part of Connections. It’s funded by Champion McDowell Davis Charitable Trust. One Monday a month the visitors can tour the exhibitions, listen to musicians play harp and flute and engage in an art-making activity.

“And I’ll tell you, I cry every time,” Wilson said.

She also leads a class for cancer patients from the Novant New Hanover Regional Medical Center Zimmer Cancer Center. They join in the exhibition spaces to meditate, partake in writing and art-making exercises, and then connect with one another.

“Watching them talk about their shared experiences, their cancer journeys, I will never forget that,” Wilson said. “There’s so many rewarding experiences of being part of the museum.”

Wilson moved to Wilmington from Boston more than a decade ago to receive her masters of fine arts at UNCW in creative writing. She was a co-founder of the campus literary magazine “Ecotone” and worked at DREAMS before taking a role at CAM.

She said she always was attracted to art museums in general due to them being a welcoming sanctuary of escape.

“Art is something that we all share, you know, whatever age we are, whatever our background is,” she said. “I love that we all bring our own context to a work of art and somehow through all of that, when you go to a museum, you can look at a work of art and have a shared experience with other museum goers.”

Wilson said it goes back to honoring the legacy of St. John’s, CAM’s founding, something that was challenged during Covid-19 — the hardest moment so far during her time at CAM. The museum was closed for six months and sustained losses of $300,000 from a typical $800,000 revenue stream. Staff was laid off; a core eight members were retained. 

“We are slowly building staff back up,” Wilson said. “It’s going to take time to recover.”

However, there will not be a replacement in her former deputy director role any time soon, she verified.

In the immediate future, Wilson is concentrating on opening CAM’s next exhibit, “Love,” an adaptation “Love, What is Left Unspoken,” which was on display in Atlanta’s High Museum last year. Locally, it opens next Thursday, June 22.

“It speaks to all different kinds of love that we as humans experience — friendship love, family love, romantic love — and looks at the way we experience that shared emotion,” she said.

Wilson is already working ahead to next year as well. In February 2024 “The Work of Their Hands” will open. It will highlight textiles.

“It’s a quilt exhibition and we just found out we’re gonna have quilts by Faith Ringgold here,” she said. The New York artist is known for her activism of art, covering feminism and the cvil rights movement.

“We are working with nationally known artists that are important in the art world right now,” Wilson added. “So a lot of good stuff coming up on the horizon.”

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CLEVELAND, June 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — The Austin Company announced the addition of three Vice Presidents: David Oshins, Vice President of Engineering; David Mooney, Vice President of Construction; and Tamara Zupancic, Vice President of Marketing and Communications.

“Over the past five years, Austin has grown significantly because of the success of our sales and marketing efforts and project execution. We are now gearing up for another growth phase,” said Mike Pierce, President and CEO. “To meet the needs of this growth, we have strategically organized our team for scalable for long-term sustainability and expansion.”

David K. Oshins, PE, LEED AP, formerly Manager of Design and Engineering of Austin’s Eastern Operations, has been promoted to Vice President of Engineering. This newly created position will have Oshins responsible for engineering services provided by Austin’s US operations. “David will focus on improving consistency, quality, efficiency, training, profitability, and resource management within our engineering departments,” explained Pierce.

Oshins has over 35 years of industry experience, ten of which have been with Austin. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering. In addition to his role with Austin, Oshins serves as President of the Cleveland Engineering Society.

To support Austin’s ongoing sales and marketing efforts, Tamara Zupancic has been promoted to Vice President of Marketing and Communications. “Tamara has been a valuable member of the senior Austin leadership team, consistently promoting the improvement and enhancement of our brand and market position. Her passion and tireless dedication to raising the standards of Austin’s image have bolstered sales and recruiting efforts,” said Pierce.

Zupancic has over a decade of experience in marketing within the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. She graduated from Kent State University with a Bachelor of Arts in art history, criticism, and conservation and is an active member of the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS).

Austin recruited David Mooney, MBA, LEED AP, to fill the critical new position of Vice President of Construction. “David is tasked with supporting Austin’s preconstruction and construction services. He will focus on consistency, quality, training, and development of our construction resources,” said Pierce. “David will partner with our business unit leaders to ensure consistency, apply best practices, advance our use of technology and continually develop our preconstruction and construction personnel to be the best teams serving our markets.”

Mooney has over 20 years of industry experience. He graduated from Bowling Green University, earning a Bachelor of Science in construction management, and Tiffin University with a Master of Business Administration.

The Austin Company is a full-service, design-build company offering site location consulting, design, engineering, and construction. Headquartered in Cleveland, Austin has offices in Atlanta, Georgia; Irvine, California; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Merritt Island, Florida; San Luis Potosi, Mexico; and London, United Kingdom. The Austin Company is a subsidiary of Kajima USA. To learn more about Austin – https://theaustin.com/ 

SOURCE The Austin Company

Seated on the floor with an arm resting on her knee, an exhausted boxer recovers from physical exertion in Hans Op de Beeck’s newest life-size sculpture, “Hélène.” Coated in the artist’s signature shade of gray, the work captures the interplay of light and shadow to reveal subtle folds of fabric, padding, and the figures’s physical features. “Op de Beeck has always paid special attention to the moment when we let go of our social roles and daily worries and surrender to a moment when we are nobody and nowhere for a while,” a statement says, “when we slip into the unknown of the subconscious.”

A range of dualities are at the core of Op de Beeck’s practice, such as wakefulness and sleep, motion and stillness, or life and death. “Danse Macabre,” for example, juxtaposes the playful, nostalgic motif of a baroque carousel with skull ornamentation and a spectral skeleton in a long dress, symbolically examining the cycle of life and relationships between the present and the past, vitality and mortality, and joy and horror.

Op de Beeck’s monumental sculptures (previously) often focus on a central, heroic figure, like “The Boatman” or “The Horseman,” below, which depict lithe, enigmatic figures who appear about to embark on adventures. Undergirding these depictions is a sense that, while the characters appear to be on the move, they are simultaneously frozen in time.

Detail of “We were the last to stay.” Photo by Blaise Adilon, © Biennale de Lyon 2022

At the Biennale de Lyon in 2022, Op de Beeck’s immersive installation “We were the last to stay” invited viewers into an alternate reality containing the remnants of a mysterious, perhaps apocalyptic, event. Devoid of people, the scene is of a small community where residents may have sustained a simple way of life. Every surface is coated in gray, with chairs overturned and homes vacated. Visitors, inherently colorfully dressed and lively, activated the installation by highlighting stark contrasts between presence and absence.

Op de Beeck also references the tradition of vanitas, a genre of still-life painting popularized during the Dutch Golden Age that relied on symbolism to show the fleeting nature of life, the certainty of death, and the futility of pleasure, wealth, or glory. Nestled somewhere between reality, dreams, and imagined adventures, the artist leaves interpretations open: Has something happened to petrify the world? Will it always stay this way? As if turned to stone, “The Horseman” will eternally peer over his shoulder, just as “Hélène” will continue to rest.

See more of Op de Beeck’s work on his website and Instagram.

Detail of “Hélène”

“Gesture (laurel wreath)” (2022), polyester, polyamide, and coating, 55 x 54.5 x 20 centimeters

“Danse Macabre” (2021), installation of steel, aluminum, wood, polyester, polyamide, polyurethane, PVC coated nylon, plaster, and coating, 11 x 11 x 6.5 meters

“Gesture (bird)” (2022), polyester, polyamide, and coating, 37 x 45 x 20 centimeters

“Gesture (dandelion clock)” (2022), polyester, polyamide, silk, metal wire, and coating, 14 x 53 x 21 centimeters

“We were the last to stay” (2022), mixed media immersive installation, 790 × 240 × 136 centimeters. Photo by Blaise Adilon, © Biennale de Lyon 2022

Visitors to “We were the last to stay”

Detail of “We were the last to stay.” Photo by Blaise Adilon, © Biennale de Lyon 2022

“The Horseman” (2020), polyester, steel, polyamide, brass, coating, and bronze, 215 x 92 x 243 centimeters

Details of “The Horseman”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Enigmatic Figures Are Frozen in Time in Hans Op de Beeck’s Lifelike, Monochromatic Sculptures appeared first on Colossal.