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How Ireland lost the opportunity to become the ‘super director’ of Big Tech


Many of the largest US technology companies have their European headquarters in Dublin.

Artur Widak | Nurphoto | beautiful pictures

Upcoming EU regulations that force Big Tech to have stronger internet content police will be directly enforced by the European Commission, a move experts say will reduce Ireland’s role so far in overseeing the digital giants in the region.

As of 2018, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission is the main privacy watchdog that monitors the likes of parent company Facebook Meta and Google of the European Union General provisions on data protectionaims to give consumers more control over their data.

That’s because many of the biggest US tech companies, including Meta, Google and Microsoftchose Dublin for their European headquarters, in no small part due to Ireland favorable tax regime.

But DPC Ireland has face criticism for years due to the slow progress of major privacy investigations and the failure to impose substantial fines.

“Ireland remains a serious barrier to GDPR enforcement,” Paul-Olivier Dehaye, founder of Personal Data, a Swiss nonprofit focused on online privacy, told CNBC. .

For its part, DPC Ireland said such criticisms were incomplete and lacked context.

However, with Recently approved Digital Services Act, Ireland will no longer be at the center of the EU’s crackdown on Big Tech. Together with Brussels’ new antitrust framework, Digital Markets ActThe rules represent the most significant reforms to internet policy in the bloc’s history.

The DSA, scheduled to go into effect in 2024, will require major online platforms to quickly remove illegal material such as hate speech or child sexual abuse material, or risk it. billions of dollars in fines.

How do we get here?

The initial DSA text would grant authorities in individual member countries the ability to penalize the largest online platforms with headquarters in those countries for violations.

But EU members have rejected this, fearing that it could lead to delays in enforcement. In the end, the European Commission – the EU’s executive body – was given enforcement powers instead.

“We warned the government about this a year ago,” Johnny Ryan, a senior fellow at the Irish Civil Liberties Council, told CNBC. “This has been clearly indicated for quite some time.”

Companies that violate the new rules face potential penalties of up to 6% of their global annual revenue. For a company like Meta, that could mean fines of up to $7 billion. This is actually less than the maximum 10% enforceable fine under GDPR.

The problem is that enforcing such hefty fines comes with the risk of facing costly calls from tech companies. Criticism, word EU officials to privacy campaigners, saying the Irish DPC is ill-equipped to deal with such a backlash. According to the ICCL, the DPC has ruled in just 2% of cases across the EU since the GDPR came into force.

A spokesperson for the District People’s Committee said: “I point out that we have recently published three separate reports, that is, our annual report for 2021, which reports on the handling of cross-border complaints. border under the GDPR and an independent audit report prepared by our internal auditors, all of which demonstrate that DPC Ireland is performing clearly in terms of GDPR application.”

To date, more than 1 billion euros in fines have been issued since the GDPR took effect. The biggest number came last year from Luxembourg data watchdogfined Amazon 746 million euros for violating the rules of the bloc.

Ireland could be the center of the world. It can be the super regulator.

Johnny Ryan

Senior Member, Irish Civil Liberties Council

of Ireland 225 million GDPR fines compared to WhatsApp is the second largest. Both companies are appealing the respective decisions.

The Irish government insists the country will “play an important role” in implementing the DSA.

A spokesperson for the Department of Business, Trade and Employment told CNBC: “The DSA provides a network of national authorities and the European Commission that work together, exchange information and conduct actions. joint investigation.

While the Commission will act as the main enforcement agency for “systemic” companies such as Meta and Google, which have millions of users across the bloc, Ireland and other EU countries “will” responsible for all other obligations under the DSA,” the spokesperson added.

‘Watershed moment’

Owen Bennett, senior public policy director at Mozilla, said the development represented a “turning point” for Big Tech’s scrutiny in the EU.

“Ireland has for many years been the de facto European regulator for almost all of the biggest tech companies,” Bennett told CNBC. “DSA sets a new precedent for centralizing Big Tech oversight in Brussels, rather than Dublin.”

“I would be surprised if this doesn’t become mainstream in the coming years, with the European Commission playing a more prominent role in enforcing the rules against Big Tech.”

The European Commission will also be the sole enforcement agency of the Digital Markets Act, which seeks to prevent the so-called “gatekeepers” of the internet from harming competition. For example, Google would be prohibited from prioritizing its services over those of a rival search engine.

Under the DMA, companies can be fined up to 10% of global annual revenue for breaking the rules. That number can go up to 20% for repeated violations.

Ryan said: “Ireland could be the center of the world. “It could be a super-regulatory agency, a super-executive — essentially the decision-making center of these companies.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.”

The EU has led the way in introducing new digital regulations, and now governments in the US, UK and elsewhere are racing to catch up.

In Washington, the administration of President Joe Biden has tap famous Big Tech critics to lead an antitrust crackdown on companies, while in the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is pushing landmark digital reform its own.



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