European Union data protection agencies have sanctioned a total of €33.61 million in General Data Protection Regulation fines (GDPR) during the first quarter of 2021 according to a report produced by Finbold.
During the period from January 1 to March 31, January recorded the highest number of fines at €17.5m. There was a 90.28% fall off during February to €1.7 million, with a rise to €14.29m in March.
The report outlined the significance of the fines, pointing to increasing familiarity with the legislation resulting in it’s more stringent application and an increasing number of fines.
Finbold said: “The significant amount of the GDPR fines highlights the increasing ability by European regulators to use their enforcement authority in implementing the law that came into use less than three years ago. The imposed high fines point to improved ability to detect instances of personal data violation. Also, the spotting of violation cases has been improved since the law grants more control to consumers who are the most affected.”
Breaking the figures down by EU member state, Spain sanctioned the largest total of GDPR fines during this time period with Spanish data protection regulators sanctioning a total of €15.7m in GDPR penalties across 34 cases. In second place came Germany with a total of €10.7m from just three cases, while Italy registered GDPR fines amounting to €5.6 million across 20 cases.
Next in line came the Netherlands (4th) with €440,000 from just one GDPR breach case, Norway (5th) with €382,750 in fines. France occupies 7th place with three cases totaling €245,000 in GDPR fines and the Czech Republic which reported just one GDPR breach case and an accompanying penalty of €118,500.
Elsewhere, the four GDPR breaches cases in Belgium’s resulted in €86,000 of GDPR fines being sanctioned, five cases in Poland warranting GDPR fines of €81,300, and Cyprus with four cases and €81,000 in GDPR penalties. Italy and Germany were responsible for 78.53% of the total amount of GDPR fines sanctioned during the first quarter of 2021.