A new report published by the Irish Council of Civil Liberties (ICCL) claims that Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) is failing to enforce the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The ICCL criticises the DPC's record saying, "Ireland continues to be the bottleneck of enforcement: it delivers few draft decisions on major cross-border cases. When it does eventually do so, other European enforcers then routinely vote by majority to force it to take tougher enforcement action."
In the five years since the GDPR came into effect, the DPC's fellow EU data protection authorities (DPAs) have overruled 75% of its decisions. In contrast, only one other case has been overruled in the same manner across the whole of the EU. The report also reports on EU DPA operating budgets, noting that the combined enforcement investment equates to around a third of a billion euros.
In a press release announcing the research, ICCL Senior Fellow Dr Johnny Ryan said, “Five years on, the data now show a stark failure to enforce the GDPR – particularly against Big Tech. That failure exposes everyone to serious digital hazards: discrimination, manipulation, information distortion, and invasive AI. We urge the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, to finally take action.”
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