In its latest GDPR Fines and Data Breach Survey, DLA Piper reported another significant year in General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforcement for 2024, with a total of €1.2 billion in fines imposed across Europe. The figure represents a marked 33% decline from the previous year and a departure from the seven-year trend of increasing fines. However, this decrease does not indicate a change in focus on GDPR enforcement, as the overall trend remains upward in the long term. The decline in 2024 can largely be attributed to the €1.2 billion fine against Meta in 2023, which had disproportionately influenced the previous year's figures. Notably, there were no record-setting fines in 2024.
Since the implementation of GDPR in 2018, the total fines accumulated now amount to €5.88 billion.
In related news, courtesy of Jon Baines' post on LinkedIn, the publication of a recent response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on the What Do They Know website by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) makes for sober reading. The statistics show that out of 28582 data protection complaints received in 2024, the percentage of complaints resulting in regulatory action in the period was 0.00%.
Looking at the statistics in more detail, 1.4% of the results were classified as either an infringement (0.5%), no infringement (0.5%), or potential infringement (0.4%). Taking account of the 0.1% that were not information rights complaints, we're left to assume the remaining 98.5% were not investigated.
Previous years' statistics revealed in June 2023 show that the percentage of complaints resulting in regulatory action in 2021, 2022, and 2023 were also low, at 0.01%, 0.02% and 0.02%, respectively.
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