{"id":281005,"date":"2026-01-12T15:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T15:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/281005\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T15:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T15:14:07","slug":"data-protection-commission-owed-more-than-e4-billion-in-fines-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/281005\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Protection Commission owed more than \u20ac4 billion in fines \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/data-protection-commission\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/data-protection-commission\/\">Data Protection Commission<\/a> (DPC) is owed more than \u20ac4 billion in fines that have not been collected or are subject to legal challenge. The DPC hit companies \u2013 including firms in Big Tech \u2013 with more than \u20ac530 million in fines last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">However, just \u20ac125,000 of that has been collected so far, according to data released under FOI laws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Over the past six years, the commission has levied an incredible \u20ac4.04 billion in fines, mostly on multinational technology companies. However, of that total, \u20ac4.02 billion remains uncollected and just \u20ac20 million has been paid in fines so far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In 2024, \u20ac652 million worth of fines was levied, of which \u20ac582,500 has been paid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The year before that, the DPC imposed fines worth \u20ac1.55 billion \u2013 yet just \u20ac815,000 was collected. During 2022, the commission decided on fines with a value of just over \u20ac1 billion, \u20ac17 million of which has been paid so far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Five years ago in 2021, companies were ordered to pay \u20ac225 million over data protection issues \u2013 \u20ac800,000 has  been collected. Even for 2020, when just \u20ac785,000 in fines was imposed, less than 10 per cent of that, or \u20ac75,000, has been paid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/2025\/12\/02\/data-protection-commission-sought-10m-budget-increase-to-beef-up-staff-numbers\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Data Protection Commission sought \u20ac10m budget increase to beef up staff numbersOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Data Protection Commission said the majority of these cases were currently the subject of appeals in the Irish courts. It said that under legislation, fines could not be collected until they were confirmed in court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">An information note said: \u201cWhere an entity subject to a fine decides to appeal &#8230; the DPC is precluded in law from collecting the fine until the appeal has been heard.\u201d The commission said that many of the fines hinged on a key case involving WhatsApp, which is before the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/european-court-of-justice\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/european-court-of-justice\/\"> Court of Justice of the EU<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Asked whether any of the fines were considered \u201cuncollectable\u201d for any reason, the DPC said none were.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Data Protection Commission (DPC) is owed more than \u20ac4 billion in fines that have not been collected&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,7242,18,122681,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-281005","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-data-protection-commission","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-european-court-of-justice","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115882784381620146","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}