These are the most common GDPR complaints

Written By Sofia Michili

What kind of complaints are people submitting in the framework of GDPR? A study by EU published in 2019 gives a quick and easy overview of the impact of GDPR until now.​

Awareness

  • 67% of Europeans have heard of the GDPR

  • Even though 57% of Europeans know that there is an authority in their country protecting the data, only 20% know which public authority is responsible

  • People are becoming more and more aware and contact data protection authorities to ask questions and submit complaints about their data rights.

Complaints

  • 144,376 complaints have been submitted since the enforcement of GDPR in May 2018.

  • 89,271 data breaches have been reported

  • Telemarketing, promotional e-mails, and video surveillance are the top 3 reasons for complaints

  • GDPR fines can amount up to 4% of the company's annual turnover. Some examples of fines imposed:

    • Google was fined with € 50.000.000 for lack of consent to advertisements

    • A data brokering company was fined € 220.000 for failure to inform individuals that their data was being processed by the company

    • British Airways risks to be fined with € 204.000.000 (!) for having insufficient technical and organisational measures to ensure information security (related to a cyber incident in September 2018)

  • Fines are expected to increase in the future, to increase the enforcement of GDPR


Sources:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/infographic-gdpr_in_numbers_1.pdf
https://gdpr.eu/gdpr-fines-so-far/
https://www.enforcementtracker.com/

Sofia Michili https://sofiamichili.com/
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