Ireland's data protection agency undercut by EU ruling on Big Tech 

Today’s decision relates to a case taken by the Belgian Privacy Commission, that country’s own regulator, in September 2015 before the Belgian courts, seeking an injunction against Facebook over its system of data gathering, using cookies and 'like' buttons and other social plugins, which it claimed were in violation of data protection law.

The Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) has had its position as lead regulator for tech giants based in Ireland, such as Facebook, undercut by a landmark European ruling.

A decision handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union states that any of the 27 European data authorities can bring an enforcement under the GDPR - even if that regulator is not the lead supervisory authority in the case - “under certain conditions”.