Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon said the long-running criticisms are “becoming old news”.
Ireland’s regulator of big tech companies has long faced criticism from civil liberties groups in Ireland and across Europe, accusing it of being too soft and too slow.
It comes after the Data Protection Commission (DPC) issued a fine to Instagram of €405 million over the way in which it handled teenagers’ personal data, making it the largest fine the authority has ever issued.
Instagram’s parent company, Meta, said in a statement that it plans to appeal against the decision.
The DPC came under fire for suggesting a €50 million fine against WhatsApp for violating privacy regulations. However, after consulting with its European allies, the sanction was raised to €225 million.
According to Ms. Dixon, many of the criticisms are becoming outdated, at least when it comes to the facts. For instance, let's take the WhatsApp scandal as an example (case).
If you examine the judgement the European Data Protection Board made about WhatsApp, the reason the punishment ended up being higher is actually due to a technical interpretation of one of the GDPR's paragraphs (General Data Protection Regulation).
"In actuality, the EDPB adopted a different technical interpretation. No, they replied, they ought to be combined collectively.
"Due to the interpretation that developed in that scenario, there is an arithmetic problem. As a result, it's not an illustration of how these types of violations should be found and subsequently punished for a punitive effect using a different strategy.
In September 2020, the DPC launched an investigation into how Instagram handled the data of underage users.
The investigation focused on a procedure that permitted users between the ages of 13 and 17 to manage business profiles on Instagram, a process that occasionally permitted or demanded that children's phone numbers and/or email addresses be made public.
Because we are aware that the phenomena of technology-facilitated grooming exists, Ms. Dixon continued, "With a case like this, it's slightly more concrete what the damages could be.
"The users may have uploaded contact information without making them aware of the hazards, and those risks could be quite significant.
So in 2020, we started an investigation. We examined design issues in connection to the automated publication of children's content to the public, in relation to the release of contact information, and in relation to how Instagram itself had evaluated the risks and created its protective mechanisms accordingly.
"We discovered violations in a variety of categories.
"We evaluated the seriousness and type of things, and we proposed fines, a fining range for each of the violations that we identified, and those findings ranges came up to €405 million in all."
When the fine is officially verified by the Dublin courts, Meta is likely to pay it.
The money then goes to the Exchequer.
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