- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Neil Hodge2021-02-25T21:48:00
Ireland’s data regulator has 27 ongoing cross-border inquiries into Big Tech firms, according to its latest annual report. It expects several cases to be resolved in the coming year.
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Experts weigh in on the Irish Data Protection Commission’s €225 million (U.S. $267 million) GDPR fine against WhatsApp, which saw the European Data Protection Board rule to increase the fine total and compliance obligations.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission announced a record-breaking €225 million (U.S. $267 million) fine against WhatsApp that is equally significant for the compliance lessons it imparts and inconsistency of the GDPR it exposes.
Experts believe the GDPR is largely “future-proof,” though fine decisions that vary considerably from one EU country to the next and lack of transparency remain areas of concern for the privacy law three years in.
It has been four years since the European Union’s flagship data privacy legislation came into force, but concerns are already being raised about whether the General Data Protection Regulation is being outpaced by technological developments and their use of data.
So far, Europe’s wide-reaching data privacy rules have seemingly failed to curb Big Tech firms’ use and abuse of citizens’ personal data. As a result, some EU data regulators are pursuing their own investigations—often through other legislation.
Belgian Data Protection Authority head David Stevens and Member of European Parliament Axel Voss discussed ways the General Data Protection Regulation could be improved for the future during a keynote at CW’s virtual Europe event.
