Germany"s rail carrier Deutsche Bahn was fined a record 1.12 million euros (1.7 million dollars) on Friday, for breaching data protection laws, dpa reported. Earlier this year, it emerged that the rail operator had been accessing confidential staff data including emails and bank accounts for more than a decade, in attempts to fight possible corruption. The head of Deutsche Bahn, Hartmut Mehdorn, was forced to resign after it became apparent that 173,000 of Deutsche Bahn"s 220,000 employees had been screened this way. Deutsche Bahn said it accepted the fine, which is the highest penalty ever issued by Germany"s data protection agency. Data protection commissioner Alexander Dix said the company had drawn "the correct consequences" from the scandal, giving data protection a high priority within the corporation. Deutsche Bahn has since set up a new department for data protection, headed by board member Gerd Becht. The chief executive officer of Deutsche Bahn, Ruediger Grube, said Becht and his team would "do everything to ensure that, in future, Deutsche Bahn provides impeccable and correct data protection." New employee data protection guidelines are to be agreed within the company next month. --SPA
