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Noyb: ‘Strict GDPR enforcement only exists on paper’


When the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in May 2018, Brussels promised us a new era of data protection. Truth is that data protection authorities (DPAs) are highly inefficient and hardly impose fines on companies that violate our privacy.

According to Max Schrems, Chairman of Austrian privacy advocacy group Noyb, statistics show that on average merely 1.3% of all cases that are brought before DPAs actually result in a fine.

With having imposed fines in 6.84% of all cases, the Slovakian DPA is leading the statistics, followed by Bulgaria (4.19%), Cyprus (3.12%) and Greece (2.65%). The DPA from the Netherlands on the other hand has issued fines in only 0.03% of all cases, closely followed by France (0.10%), Poland (0.18%), Finland (0.21%), Sweden (0.25%) and Ireland (0.26%).

Schrems finds this totally unacceptable.

“European data protection authorities have all the necessary means to adequately sanction GDPR violations and issue fines that would prevent similar violations in the future. Instead, they frequently drag out the negotiations for years, only to decide against the complainant’s interests all too often,” he says in a statement on Data Protection Day.

Schrems states that DPAs often seem to be acting in the interest of companies rather than the people concerned. Instead, they should be imposing more fines, because more fines will lead to more compliance, he believes.

Some authorities repeatedly argue that they need more budget and resources to make more timely and high-impact decisions. However, their budgets have increased significantly over the last few years.

For example, the Dutch DPA recorded a budget increase of 62% over the last four years to almost €37 million in 2023. According to Schrems, this pattern can be seen throughout the EU.

The Chairman ends on the note that almost 40% of all GDPR fines can be traced back to Noyb. “This means that, in reality, there rather seems to be a lack of political willpower to stand up against tech giants than a lack of possibilities to act,” Schrems says.


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