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The European Union expects to issue the first GDPR fines this year. The number of complaints received by data agencies is said to have been overwhelming. It is therefore expected that the first large fines will come in, as well as decisions to prohibit companies from operating in the EU.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in force since last May. Companies must give consumers far-reaching control over their data. They must be able to retrieve data and the way it is used. In addition, users should be able to delete their data. Companies that do not comply with this will be fined up to four percent of their worldwide annual turnover. The first companies to be affected by this are on their way.

Maintain

That’s what European Data Protection Supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli tells Reuters. Data protection and consumer privacy agencies across the Union would be overwhelmed by the number of complaints. I expect the first GDPR fines in some cases before the end of the year, says Buttarelli.

According to him, this is not only a question of financial penalties, but also of decisions to prohibit companies from being active or temporarily from being active. The fine is relevant to the company and to public opinion. But from an administrative point of view, it is only one element of how we can maintain.

Many researches in progress

According to Buttarelli, companies that may be affected by this type of business are active in several countries in the European Union. There are also public authorities that may be affected by fines. Buttarelli refused to answer the question of which companies or government agencies are being investigated. One of the agencies that seems to be being investigated is Ticketmaster, which had to deal with a data breach at the end of June.

One of Buttarelli’s recommendations is that companies also comply with ePrivacy. That policy is currently being reviewed and designed to work directly alongside GDPR. The ePrivacy policy is also intended to ensure a level playing field for telecom companies and new players. At the moment, traditional telecom companies have to deal with much stricter rules than, for example, Skype and WhatsApp, while the services are virtually the same.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.