“Lisbon City Council confirms that it will appeal the fine imposed by the Lisbon District Administrative Court in the amount of one million euros for sending data from Russian activists in 2021, during Fernando Medina’s presidency”, indicated the executive led by Carlos Moedas, in a written response.

For the social democrat, quoted in the text, the incident, which occurred during the socialist administration, “is unacceptable”, but it is the municipality’s duty to “appeal to protect the people of Lisbon and safeguard the good name of the institution”.

At the beginning of August, when it confirmed that it was aware of the ruling, “under which it was ordered to pay 1,027,500 euros”, the council indicated that it was evaluating whether or not to appeal the decision. At the time, Carlos Moedas – who has been the president of the executive since 2021 – regretted the “heavy inheritance”, stating that he would defend the people of Lisbon.

In January 2022, the National Data Protection Commission (CNPD) imposed a fine of €1.25 million on the municipality for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation by “communicating the personal data of the organisers of demonstrations to third parties”. The CNPD identified 225 administrative offences in the communications made by the municipality in the context of demonstrations, rallies or parades. The fine was the result of proceedings opened following a complaint filed with the CNPD on 19 March 2021. The case involved the communication by the Portuguese local authority to the Russian embassy in Portugal and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs of personal data belonging to the organizers of a demonstration held at the embassy.

The activists, dissidents of the Russian regime, had held a protest in January 2021 for the release of Russian government opponent Alexey Navalny and argued that the Lisbon City Council had jeopardised their safety and that of their family members in Russia by disclosing their data.

In June of this year, when oral arguments were held in the trial of the request to challenge the fine by the local authority, the council's defence considered that there was no way to convict the defendants, due to the lack of a sanctioning provision.

The initial amount of the fine was subsequently reduced by 222,500 euros due to the statute of limitations on some offences.

When the decision of the Administrative Court of the Lisbon District was announced, the socialist council criticised Moedas's "political" stance and rejected the idea of ​​a heavy inheritance left by the PS, stating that the council could, and should, appeal.

The case became public knowledge in June 2021, in the midst of the pre-campaign for the local elections, leading to a series of protests, from Amnesty International to political parties. A month later, Lisbon City Council approved by a majority vote the dismissal of the municipality's data protection officer.

In the presentation of an internal audit on the matter, Medina acknowledged that the municipality had repeatedly disregarded a 2013 order, signed by António Costa, the mayor at the time, in which it gave an "order to change the procedure so that data would only be sent to the Public Security Police and the Ministry of Internal Affairs".

In June 2021, the Russian ambassador to Portugal, Mikhail Kamynin, stated that the embassy had deleted the protesters' data and stressed that the information had not been transmitted to Moscow.

In February 2023, the three activists in question announced that they would sue the local authority, demanding compensation of 120 thousand euros as “compensation for the moral damages suffered”, since the fine requested by the CNPD “did not benefit any person or entity that was the victim of this repeated practice of undue sharing of personal data”.