WhatsApp, Facebook’s mobile messaging app, has been fined € 225 million by the Irish data protection authority, the Data Protection Commission (DPC). This is the conclusion of an investigation launched in December 2018. The purpose of the investigation was to verify whether WhatsApp complied with the transparency obligations required by the GDPR for the transmission of information.
This includes the information provided to users about the handling of their information between WhatsApp and other Facebook companies. In short, WhatsApp hasn’t told citizens of the European Union enough about what it does with their data. In addition to imposing a fine, the DPC berates WhatsApp and demands that the US firm bring its treatment into compliance by taking a series of specified corrective actions. WhatsApp has indicated it will appeal.
A fine increased to 225 million euros under pressure from other authorities
Max Schrems, the Austrian lawyer who has sued Facebook for years in court, considers that the Irish regulator has taken a long time for this sanction of WhatsApp when ” the DPC has received around ten thousand complaints per year since 2018. He says the DPC initially planned a fine of 50 million euros and was forced by other European data protection authorities to raise the fine to 225 million euros.
« The fine only represents 0.08% of the turnover of the Facebook group ”
-« This only represents 0.08% of the turnover of the Facebook group while the GDPR provides for fines of up to 4% of the turnover. This shows how extremely dysfunctional CPD is stillhe says. Max Schrems has no illusions about the time it will take to reach a final judgment and an actual payment of the fine. « This case is to be expected to be in Irish courts for years to come. ” does he think.
The DPC is even accused of a certain laziness. “ We often felt that the DPC was more concerned with making the headlines than with the difficult preparatory work. It will be very interesting to see if the DPC will really fully defend this decision, because it was essentially forced to take this decision by its European counterparts. We will be monitoring this case closely to ensure that the DPC is actually following through on this decision. He warns.
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