Court clears former Vastaamo CEO Ville Tapio of data protection charges

According to Helsinki Times, the Helsinki Court of Appeal overturned the criminal conviction of Ville Tapio, the former CEO of Vastaamo, in a case linked to one of Finland’s most serious data breaches. The court ruled that Tapio was not criminally liable for alleged data protection failures related to the unauthorised access and publication of tens of thousands of patients’ sensitive information.

Tapio had previously received a three-month suspended prison sentence from the District Court of Helsinki in spring 2023, which the court had found him guilty of a data protection offence for failing to meet GDPR requirements, particularly regarding data encryption and pseudonymisation. Both Tapio and the prosecution appealed the ruling, with Tapio requesting the charges be dropped entirely and prosecutors seeking an increase to an unconditional prison term.