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Irish DPC fines global social media company €17 million for GDPR violations

Privacy/Cyber Risk & Data Security Of Interest to Non-US Persons Enforcement EU Data Breach GDPR

Privacy, Cyber Risk & Data Security

On March 15, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) adopted a decision fining a global social media company €17 million (approximately $18.6 million) after finding that the company failed to prevent a series of data breaches in 2018. The DPC conducted an inquiry into a series of 12 data breach notifications it received between June 7, 2018 and December 4, 2018, to examine the extent that the company complied with GDPR requirements related to the processing of personal data. Following the inquiry, the DPC found that the company violated GDPR Articles 5(2) and 24(1) by failing “to have in place appropriate technical and organizational measures which would enable it to readily demonstrate the security measures that it implemented in practice to protect EU users’ data, in the context of the twelve personal data breaches.” Article 5 outlines principles related to the processing of personal data and requires companies to ensure that EU residents’ personal data is processed “in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorized or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technical or organizational measures.” Article 24(1) requires controllers to “implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure and to be able to demonstrate that processing is performed in accordance with” the GDPR. The DPC noted that because the processing under examination constituted “cross-border” processing, the “decision represents the collective views of both the DPC and its counterpart supervisory authorities throughout the EU.”