Irish DPC appoints Facebook lobbyist as 3rd Commissioner
17/09/2025 | Data Protection Commission
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has announced that it has appointed Niamh Sweeney, a former lobbyist for WhatsApp, Facebook, and Stripe, as its third Commissioner. Sweeney's appointment was made by the Irish government as it plans to increase the regulator's resources. Her prior roles included leading public policy for WhatsApp in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and lobbying for Facebook in Ireland.
In a statement responding to the news, Austrian privacy activist and honorary chair of the not-for-profit organisation NOYB, Max Schrems, said: "We now literally have a US big tech lobbyist policing US big tech for Europe. For 20 years, Ireland did not actually enforce EU law, but at least they had enough shame to undermine enforcement secretly.
"We now witness a time where just pleasing US big tech behind the scenes is not enough anymore. The US demands that European countries publicly bow before US big tech."
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