Enforcement of data protection rules is ramping up faster than anything we’ve seen for an EU policy in the past.

Last month, Facebook’s parent company Meta was hit with a record €1.2 billion fine by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission. 

Officials ruled it had transferred the data of EU citizens to the United States without providing sufficient guarantees of privacy. 

Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, Associate Law Professor Eoin O’Dell said it was proof of how seriously issues of privacy are now taken. 

“This is the quickest ramping up of enforcement in respect of any European enforcement policy that we have seen,” he said. 

“It might not be quick enough for the critics, it might be slowly catching up with the bad guys but that’s exactly what it is doing. 

“In relative terms, it has moved very, very quickly.”

Meta in Dublin. Photograph: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie

Meta has been banned from transferring data outside of the jurisdiction and Professor O’Dell said this was a particularly onerous punishment for the organisation. 

“If you’re an oil company and you’re told, ‘Don’t process oil,’ that’s going to hit your bottom line,” he said. 

“If you’re a data company and you’re told, ‘Don’t process data,’ that’s also going to hit your bottom line.” 

Professor O’Dell said it was an example of the Data Protection Commission doing its job well. 

“There is a lot of criticism of the DPC that they haven’t done enough or they haven’t moved quickly enough or they haven’t imposed sufficiently high fines,” he said. 

“I’m not sure that that complaint is entirely justified.”

The end of privacy?

Professor O’Dell also said that concerns about the end of privacy have existed for decades.

“There are front covers of Time magazine 50 years ago in the 70s saying, ‘Privacy is dead,’” he said. 

“So, we’ve been told that privacy is dying and that we’ve been forgetting about it and giving it away for a very long time. 

“But because we’ve been talking about it, really it mustn't be dead.” 

The EU’s GDPR law described itself as the “toughest privacy and security law in the world”. 

It imposes obligations on all organisations that use the data of EU residents or citizens.

Main image: Internet data. Picture by: Alamy.com