17. August 2022
In early December 2021, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) in its capacity as lead supervisory authority responsible for overseeing Instagram (meta) sent a draft decision to other European supervisory authorities in line with Art. 60 (3) GDPR. In this draft decision, the DPC expressed its concern with instagram’s compliance with several GDPR provisions, notably Art. 5(1)(a) and (c), 6(1), 12(1), 13, 24, 25 and 35 GDPR.
The lead supervisor authority specifically raised the issue of the public disclosure of children’s personal data, such as e-mail addresses and phone numbers, due to their use of the Instagram business account feature.
The respective Supervisory Authorities, however, did not fully agree with the draft decision and issued objections in accordance with Art. 60(4) GDPR. Unable to find common ground on some of the objections, Art. 65(1) (a) GDPR laying down the dispute resolution procedure, became applicable. Consequently, the lead supervisory authority, the DPC, was required to ask the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to adopt a binding decision.
On July 29, 2022, the EDPB announced that it had adopted a dispute resolution decision following these objections. Now, it is upon the DPC to adopt its final decision and to communicate it to the controller. The DPC has one month to issue its final decision, albeit it should be based on the EDPB decision.
20. November 2020
During its 41st plenary session, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) adopted by a two-thirds majority of its members its first dispute resolution decision under Art. 65 GDPR regarding Twitter International Company. The binding decision aims to resolve a dispute arisen from a draft decision by the Irish supervisory authority, being the lead supervisory authority in that case, and subsequent relevant and reasoned objections raised by several authorities concerned.
The Irish supervisory authority prepared a draft decision following an own-initiative investigation into Twitter International Company, after the company had notified the Irish supervisory authority of a personal data breach on January 8th, 2019. According to Art. 60 (3) GDPR, the Irish supervisory authority submitted its draft decision to the other authorities concerned in May 2020, which had the opportunity to express their objections within a period of four weeks afterwards. They referred to, inter alia, violations of the GDPR identified by the lead supervisory authority, the role of Twitter International Company as the sole data controller, and the quantification of the proposed fine.
Due to the fact that the lead supervisory authority rejected the objections and/or considered them not to be “relevant and reasoned”, it submitted the matter to the EDPB pursuant to Art. 60 (4) GDPR, thus initiating the dispute resolution procedure.
Thereupon, the completeness of the file was evaluated, that led to the institution of legal proceedings stated in Art. 65 GDPR on September 8th, 2020. In accordance with Art. 65 (3) GDPR and in conjunction with Art. 11.4 of the EDPB Rules of Procedure, the default time period of one month was extended by a further month on account of the complexity of the subject-matter.
On November 9th, 2020, the EDPB adopted its binding decision and will shortly notify it to the Irish supervisory authority, which, on the other hand, will issue a final decision. It will be addressed to the data controller without undue delay and at the latest by one month after the EDPB has notified its decision. In compliance with the requirements of Art. 65 (6) GDPR, the lead supervisory authority shall inform the EDPB of the date when its final decision is notified respectively to the controller. After that, the EDPB decision will be published on its website.
