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Since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to companies operating in the European Union, 59,000 data leaks have been received by the relevant authorities. It is striking that the Netherlands leads the list with no less than 15,400 reported data leaks.

This is the conclusion of research by DLA Piper into the results of GDPR in recent months. It turns out that many people report data leaks and that the vast majority of these reported leaks come from the Netherlands. Neighbouring Germany is not doing well either, with 12,600 reports. The United Kingdom closes the top three in absolute numbers with 10,600 reported leaks.

The Netherlands at the top

Liechtenstein, Iceland and Cyprus are at the bottom of the list when it comes to the number of reported leaks. They dealt with 15, 25 and 35 reported leaks respectively. If we look at the number of leaks in relation to the number of inhabitants of a country, the Netherlands is still in first place. An average of 89.8 leaks per 100,000 inhabitants were reported. Ireland and Denmark complete this top list.

The GDPR has been in force since 25 May 2018. Since then, any company dealing with a data breach must report it to the regulatory authorities of the country in which the leak occurred. If a company does not report it within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, it will be fined heavily. In any case, this has led to quite a few reports.

However, since the GDPR came into force, not so many fines have been handed out, a total of 91. The highest of all these fines was imposed on Google and amounted to 50 million euros. Google is currently appealing against this. The authorities have already shown what they can do and have so far handed out 91 GDPR fines. But the fine for Google is important, because it is not entirely a data leak of personal data, according to Sam Millar, one of the partners of DLA Piper who specializes in investigations into cyber and large-scale investigations.

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.