A Work in Progress: A View Inside the Irish DPC (with Helen Dixon)

Serious Privacy

Happy Data Protection Day! Paul Breitbarth and K Royal kick off Season 2 of the Serious Privacy podcast with a special guest, Helen Dixon, Data Protection Commissioner for Ireland. She is probably one of the best known data protection regulators around the world, with her office having the duty to supervise most major tech companies doing business in Europe. That comes with a lot of public scrutiny, and also with some fierce criticism.

In this episode, Commissioner Dixon talks about her plans for 2021, which have been publicly disclosed. But of course, we covered some of the major developments in 2020, such as the Court of Justice of the European Union decision on Schrems II back in July, as well as the first financial penalty for a US tech company. The Irish Data Privacy Commission has not been slacking off in the past year, with over 6,000 complaints, more than 7,000 breach reports, and multiple consultations, including input on COVID tracking apps and issuing guidance on CCTV.

Join us as we discuss what the workload under the General Data Protection Regulation has meant for personnel needs in her office, as well as addressing why the Irish DPC handles so many cases on US tech companies. In addition, we talked about the issues in international data transfers, including the appointment of Christopher Hoff in the US to lead the negotiations of a replacement for the invalidated EU-US Privacy Shield. We also touched on data ethics, accountability, and how to build a compliant corporate program. It’s all a work in progress.
Resources

• Irish Times on the DPC resource constraints
• Irish DPC Twitter Decision

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