Partial gains for consumers in new rules on GDPR enforcement

The European institutions have reached a political deal that could improve some of the procedures relating to the enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) but leave doubt over certain elements.

The GDPR is a crucial law to protect people’s personal data and ensure that companies do not break those rules, particularly in cases that affect people across various countries. However, the slow pace and widely-varying procedures in enforcing the law in different countries have hampered this legislation. For example, BEUC worked with several of its members to file complaints against Google for its location-tracking measures in 2018 and there is still no decision on this case.

Agustín Reyna, Director General of BEUC, said:
“The agreement today marks some progress for those like us, who have been frustrated to see the GDPR’s enforcement as its Achilles heel. Big Tech companies have been able to largely continue their harmful practices despite the GDPR being in place for years. However, we ask authorities to make procedures swifter and to maintain good cooperation with consumer organisations.  This is important given the power of multinationals and the snail pace of GDPR enforcement for the last years.”

We welcome that the agreement today now sets deadlines for data protection authorities to complete specific stages of an investigation. However, it is possible to postpone a deadline for various reasons, which means that the speed at which a decision is reached depends on the good will of the lead authority and the appropriate national procedures.

The new rules are also a missed opportunity to harmonise and ensure a consistent right for complainants to be heard at key moments of the investigation. This is important, as countries like France have not allowed complainants to be heard at all. Depending on the country and due to the lack of harmonised procedures, complainants might therefore still not be able to have access to the information necessary to understand how the authority reached its decision, which is important for consumer organisations and other civil society groups involved in cases.