Irish Data Commission Sees Uptick In Complaints In 2018

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) received 4,113 complaints in 2018 -- a 56% increase over the number in 2017, the DPC says in its annual report released on Thursday.

And 2,864 came in between May -- when the GDPR came into effect -- and December. The report provides a snapshot of the privacy issues seen in the wake of GDPR. 

The largest single category in that six-month period was access rights, totaling 977.

In that time frame, 32 new electronic direct marketing complaints were filed, 18 of them related to email marketing. Another 11 complaints concerned SMS marketing and three pertained to telephone marketing.

The DPC, without breaking them down, said there were several successful local prosecutions.  

Overall, the DPC concluded 41 electronic marketing investigations.

Prosecutions were concluded concerning 30 offenses under the E-Privacy regulations.

Of 1,928 GDPR complaints, 550 were actively being assessed, 510 had gone on to complaint-handling and 868 were concluded.

The report also states there were 4,740 data breaches in the calendar year 2018, a 70% increase over 2017, and 3,542 breaches between May and December, the largest category being unauthorized disclosures.

According to the DPC, 38 of these breaches related to 11 multinational technology companies. The DPC handled 48 data-breach complaints from affected data subjects.  

In addition, the DPC received 136 cross-border processing complaints via the DPC’s One-Stop-Shop mechanism.

Of the contacts coming in, 15,000 were via email, 13,000 by telephone and 3,000 by post.

“The rise in the number of complaints and queries demonstrates a new level of mobilization to action on the part of individuals to tackle what they see as misuse or failure to adequately explain what is being done with their data,” states Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon.

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