Ireland second in Europe for fines issued for breaching GDPR rules

The State's €225m fine of WhatsApp last year was the second-largest in the four-year history of GDPR

As home to some of the world's largest tech and data companies, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon holds one of the key enforcement roles in Europe when it comes to GDPR. 

Ireland remains close to the top of the EU table for issuing fines to companies and organisations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

According to research by DLA Piper, there has been a seven-fold increase in the value of fines issued by data protection officials across the EU. There were 6,802 data breaches reported to the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) in the past 12 months, the sixth-highest level of breach notifications across Europe and the fourth highest on a per capita basis.