Irish data protection commission fines WhatsApp €225m

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced Thursday a conclusion to a GDPR investigation it conducted into WhatsApp Ireland Ltd. It has imposed a fine of 225 million euros on WhatsApp.

In addition to the imposition of an administrative fine, the DPC has also imposed a reprimand along with an order for WhatsApp to bring its processing into compliance by taking a range of specified remedial actions.

The DPC’s investigation commenced on December 10, 2018 and it examined whether WhatsApp has discharged its GDPR transparency obligations with regard to the provision of information and the transparency of that information to both users and non-users of WhatsApp’s service.

This includes information provided to data subjects about the processing of information between WhatsApp and other Facebook companies.

Following a lengthy and comprehensive investigation, the DPC submitted a draft decision to all Concerned Supervisory Authorities (CSAs) under Article 60 GDPR in December 2020. As the DPC failed to reach consensus on the draft decision, with objections from eight CSAs, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) adopted a binding decision on July 28, 2021 and this decision was notified to the DPC.

Source: GNA