An administrative fine of 1.3 million Euros in the so called “informant affair” raised the awareness of companies at the end of 2014:

Civil servants supposedly sold names, addresses and further data of new employees to the health insurance company Debeka. Debeka used the data to contact and acquire the respective employees as new customers. In numerous cases the necessary consent (required by data protection laws and unfair competition law) from the data subjects had not been requested or obtained.

Complete article here.