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THE IRISH DATA Protection Commissioner (DPC) has fined WhatsApp Ireland a record €225 million after a GDPR investigation into how it shares user data with other Facebook-owned social media platforms.
It’s the largest fine the DPC has ever levied against a company in its history.
The second-largest was a €450,000 penalty handed out to Twitter last December for its handling of a data breach.
The investigation stemmed from a DPC inquiry, which began in 2018, into WhatsApp Ireland and its compliance with European transparency rules under GDPR.
Incorporated in 2017, WhatsApp Ireland is the Facebook subsidiary’s main corporate entity in Europe. The Irish DPC has responsibility for oversight of the social media platform because Facebook and WhatsApp’s European headquarters are based in Dublin.
The DPC investigation examined whether WhatsApp has met its GDPR transparency obligations to users and non-users of WhatsApp’s service.
This included information provided to users about the processing of information between WhatsApp and other Facebook companies.
Last December, the DPC sent its initial draft decision to Europe’s overarching privacy watchdog, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), which is made up of 27 EU national data regulators.
But the EPDB itself issued its own decision in July after the Irish DPC was unable to reach a consensus with eight other regulators on the matter.
On foot of July’s EDPB decision, the Irish DPC was required to increase the size of its initial fine.
“This decision contained a clear instruction that required the DPC to reassess and increase its proposed fine on the basis of a number of factors contained in the EDPB’s decision,” the Irish watchdog said in a statement this morning.
“Following this reassessment the DPC has imposed a fine of €225 million on WhatsApp.”
In addition, the DPC has also formally reprimanded the Facebook-owned company, “along with an order for WhatsApp to bring its processing into compliance by taking a range of specified remedial actions”.
WhatsApp said it would appeal the decision.
“We disagree with the decision today,” the company said in a statement, calling the penalties “entirely disproportionate”.
Earlier this year, the Irish DPC’s handling of complaints about WhatsApp sparked a public row between Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon and Ulrich Kelber, Germany’s chief data protection watchdog.
In an open letter in March, Kelber said attacked the Irish office over the speed with which it can deal with complaints.
Specifically, Kelber claimed that he has sent “more than 50 complaints about WhatsApp” to the Irish commissioner, “none of which had been closed to date”.
He complained of the Irish DPC’s office “extremely slow case handling, which falls significantly behind the case handling progress of most EU and especially German supervisors”.
Additional reporting by AFP
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Who’s mammy and daddy left who the most. Let the battles begin!
@Dan The Man: Yeah,keep telling yourself that.typical Irish attitude towards success and hard work.We must be the worst begrudging nation on earth.
@Dan The Man: Just because you didn’t make it very far in life, doesn’t mean others can’t either. You just assume that anyone with something decent was just given to them. Is that your coping mechanism because you can’t admit there is people who work harder than you and make better decisions?
@John Paul: well that’s one way to look at it, but you can see how such shows might really grate on those that haven’t been able to afford a house. I am in fact lucky enough to have purchased a house I can afford but I do wonder when we might see a tent or a temporary type of house on the show. Doesn’t fit the narrative though.
This is tat, pure and simple, but it’s par for the course with RTE!
This abomination along with the other shitshow cheap Irish homes have to be the worst ever attempt by RTE at entertainment.
@Sea Spirit: Why don’t they give updates or tell you what home the people featured, make a bid on. What’s the point of it all!
@Sea Spirit: A stop Dathai should be on this show aswell for god sake he’s brilliant oh Frank
Hugh Wallace makes me nauseas ‘Hooooooome of the year’… while the majority of us hard working people can’t even afford the circular red pillow to put in our ‘favourite place’. Yup rub it in please Man just a little bit more.
@J B: No fair enough JB and thank you for that x You must be so proud of your children that’s amazing x You’re right in fairness, I need to get over my resentments it’s just hard because genuinely worked so hard and lost everything. There I go again with the self pity!! Sorry JB and thanks again for your reply x
@Donna Fallon: As all the evidence shows, Irish people have never been better off financially. Look at car sales, holidays etc. There are always people who get left behind or endure bad circumstances etc but they are definitely not the majority
@Brian M: Yup there certainly are people who get left behind I agree but our obsession with property porn in this Country is quite unsettling. I personally find it distasteful. Just an opinion.
Love the show and the judges. It is amazing what people can do on very little as in the converted shop in Tipperary. Gorgeous home full of personality.
@Suzanne Phelan: I prefer those to the ones that obviously just had more money than taste thrown into them, everything to the max size, but minimal and sterile at the same time.
Home of the year …
I blame Duncan Stewart and his show “our house” with rté which started in the mid 90s for the start of the property boom. Just looat the graph 1996 / 2008 \ 2014 / 2025
@P. V. Aglue: Ah Drunken Duncan. There’s a name I haven’t seen in a while
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