La Liga football league uses its app to listen in on fans. This is to strategically use technology to nab bars illegally streaming their football matches.

 

Spain’s data protection agency has now fined their soccer league, La Liga, €250,000 over it. They alleged that they violated European Union data privacy and transparency laws.

 

They originally designed the app to keep track of games and stats. But La Liga was also using the phone’s microphone and GPS to track bars streaming soccer games illegally.

 

 

According to reports, they used a Shazam-like technology on the app to record audio to identify soccer games. The geolocation of the phone will then be used to locate the bars streaming without proper licenses.

 

The over 10 million fans who had downloaded the app had unknowingly been doing uncover work for the soccer league.

 

La Liga claimed that the app asks for permission to access the phone’s microphone and data simply to detect La Liga streams.

 

However, the app does not explain in the terms of service that users were giving La Liga certain permissions. These permissions include consenting to use the app to detect fraudulent behaviour like pirated football screenings.

 

The Spanish data protection agency now claims that the app did not make its intentions clear. Therefore, they are ordering Laliga to take down the app by 30th June 2019.

 

Laliga says it will appeal the sanction. They claim the country’s agency does not understand the app’s technology fully. They also believe that they are not guilty of any wrongdoings.