Irish Data Regulator Working On Eleven Facebook Cases

Irish Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon has confirmed her office is working on 21 major investigations, of which no fewer than eleven concern Facebook or its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram.

GDPR laws were introduced eighteen months ago but so far, reports newspaper www.thesun.ie , no Irish-based companies have been fined under it. Tech giants tend to site their European headquarters in the low tax Republic's capital Dublin, leaving responsibility for investigating them largely with Dixon and her team, who can fine then up to 4% of their annual global turnover.

In an interview with the BBC, Dixon stressed that the sheer scale of the Silicon Valley giant's operations puts it front and center in her work: 'Certainly Facebook as a family of companies takes up a considerable proportion of our time. They have over two billion users worldwide. It's probably not surprising that they are always going to be in scope in terms of a date protection authority. The best way we can deliver results and outcomes under the GDPR for the public is to carefully, correctly and fairly, conduct investigations following due process, allowing those regulated entities a right to be heard. Otherwise if we rush to judgement on something we will simply lose once it's appealed. We want to keep it solutions-focused because I don't think anyone will thank us if we simply say let's shut all of that down when there's no alternative on the horizon'.

The Irish Data Protection Commission has handled over 11,000 complaints from individuals, with many 'amicably' resolved, but Dixon notes: 'There's a very significant issue that remains to be resolved around where competition law, data protection law and media law converge. We have more than one investigation underway which looks at online behavioural advertising under the GDPR, we've one open in respect of Facebook'.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.