Data Protection Commission learning from criticism

Data Protection Commissioner, Helen Dixon, tells Cianan Brennan what it has been like since the advent of GDPR and dealing with criticism from Europe on its handling of Big Tech

Helen Dixon, the Data Protection Commissioner, admits that her job has become “more challenging” since the advent of the GDPR, the all-encompassing EU privacy regulation which has become part of the cultural lexicon since it was introduced in May 2018. Photo: The Data Protection Commission/PA

By any stretch of the imagination, the Data Protection Commission has had a rough year.

Ireland’s one-stop regulator for the Big Tech companies of the world has faced endless criticism, mostly from around Europe, although quite a deal has also come from Irish sources, regarding the perceived slow pace of its investigations.

It might explain why when Commissioner Helen Dixon is asked by the Irish Examiner what the most enjoyable part of her job is, she responds with a laugh as if the very question may be ridiculous. A suitably diplomatic answer ensues.

“The most enjoyable part, where I get the energy from, is working with the teams at the DPC,” she says, citing the 195-strong roster of “very, very talented staff” the Commission now has at its disposal.

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She admits though that her job has become “more challenging” since the advent of the GDPR, the all-encompassing EU privacy regulation which has become part of the cultural lexicon since it was introduced in May 2018 (she’s eight years into the role as of 2022, and will give up the post automatically come September 2024).

With the onset of GDPR, the DPC has found (belatedly, per its critics) its teeth to some extent, with an eye-watering €225m fine for WhatsApp delivered last August the most headline-grabbing ruling it has given to date.

Has the Commission learned lessons from the criticism it has received?

“Very much so,” she says. "We have three years of learning now under GDPR. And, of course, we’re always learning from a communications point of view as well. Sometimes people say to us: ‘Look, your big, long, learned, accurate statements on things are all well and good, but nobody reads beyond the second sentence.”

European critics

But the DPC is perfectly capable of getting her point across when she wants to. Regarding the criticism stemming from Europe, some of it, she says, “go beyond the DPC and they relate to Ireland and they relate to linkages with the tax regime in Ireland”.

Meanwhile, one of the key demands emanating both from Europe and from internal critics like the Irish Council for Civil Liberties is that Ireland should have three commissioners, not one. Justice Minister Helen McEntee has been considering that matter for a number of months (a spokesperson for the department said that the matter is one which will be decided by the minister “very shortly”).

Ms Dixon is clear on the Commission’s own feelings on the matter.

“The DPC’s view is that three Commissioners, in light of the challenges we’ve recognised ourselves, would not assist in such a process,” she says. “If you create a college of co-decision-makers at the national level and then port that to the 41 decision-makers we have at EU level, I think you end up just slowing down the process.”

In terms of one key resolution from the past year on home soil, the end of the Public Services Card saga (in December last after the Government dropped its appeal against the DPC’s 2019 ruling regarding the illegal nature of the card), Ms Dixon says her perception is “that people were satisfied to have clarity” regarding the issue. Not that the matter is done with yet.

“Our investigations continue,” she says, adding that the DPC hopes to be in a position to put its findings regarding the alleged biometrics of the card (an investigation delayed for the past 30 months) to the Government potentially before June 2022. Watch that space.