Ghiglia: "Report on smart glasses still distorts the facts." Ranucci: The facts are incontrovertible.

Another exchange between Agostino Ghiglia , a member of the Italian Data Protection Authority, and Sigfrido Ranucci . At the center of the dispute is once again the Report investigation into Meta's smart glasses, which was previewed in a summary on the social media of the program airing tonight on RaiTre. Yesterday, the Italian Data Protection Authority had already attacked the investigation because it was "baseless, the result of either a lack of knowledge of the relevant legislation or, worse, bad faith," thus contesting the reconstruction and calling for the report to be broadcast. "We are faced with yet another attempt by the Authority to block the broadcast of a Rai program," was the Report host's response. Today, the new attack and the new response.

"Claiming that there is a correlation between my participation in the ComoLake event on October 16, 2024, and the meetings held on that occasion, including one with a Meta executive, and at dozens of conferences with representatives of companies, banks, industries, associations and professions, and the discussion in the College on October 17, 2024 on the RayBan-Smart glasses provision, once again distorts the documentary evidence of the facts," comments Agostino Ghiglia , member of the Privacy Guarantor.

"Maliciously and erroneously insinuating, through advance reels and, likely, in tonight's episode of Report, that I had any role whatsoever in a possible redetermination of the penalty is a pure exaggeration with defamatory intent," Ghiglia told Ansa . He reconstructs the incident as follows: "On October 17, 2024, the Offices proposed to the Panel to make additions and changes to the text of the provision due to the new information received from Europe (on October 7) regarding the classification of smart glasses in general (a catch-all term for hundreds of devices with different characteristics). The Panel takes note of this and, on that occasion, no one could have known about the possible redetermination of the penalty. These are the facts and documents; the rest is sensationalism and scandal."

"To address another allegedly misleading 'gem' mentioned and anticipated by some newspapers, I feel obliged to point out that the Guarantor's offices carefully monitor our expenses, deducting any that do not fall within their interpretation of our reimbursements from the following month's dues. The documentation proving the above is, of course, available," concludes Ghiglia.

Ranucci's reply

Sigfrido Ranucci doesn't remain silent. And he once again responds, in a statement to ANSA , to criticism from Agostino Ghiglia, a member of the Italian Data Protection Authority, regarding the report on Meta's smart glasses, which airs tonight on Rai3. "No single sentence was distorted, but Report documents a series of incontrovertible facts about what happened."

"The possibility of financial damage, with resulting liability," Ranucci continues, "was raised by one of the members of the Board itself. Whether a fine proposed by the same technical departments, initially for €44 million, then increased to €12.5 million, then to €1 million, which also expired under the statute of limitations despite the guarantors being aware of the deadlines, constitutes financial damage, is not a matter for Ghiglia or the others to decide, but for the Court of Auditors. We'll see if and when it sees the documents, it decides whether to investigate."

The Report host continues: "We would have liked to speak directly with the members of the Guarantor's panel, whom we asked for an interview, including Ginevra Cerrina Feroni , who had spoken of possible damage to the public purse during a panel meeting. The only one who gave us an interview, Guido Scorza , preferred not to talk about the glasses because he abstained from the vote," he explains.

"Regarding the Guarantor's management accounts, given that we were denied access to all documents, it's true that we were mistaken, but only by a small margin. According to our expert Gian Gaetano Bellavia, the entertainment expenses are not €400,000 a year, but €422,000," Ranucci concludes.