EU regulators discuss Twitter data breach penalty with Irish authorities

European Union privacy regulators are still amidst discussions regarding the penalty to be issued to social media giant Twitter by Ireland’s data privacy watchdog for a data breach. The case comes under the ambit of EU’s tough new data privacy law and its conclusion has long been awaited. The new privacy laws were introduced in 2018 and allow for tough fines on technology companies.

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Decision deferred to the EU

The Irish regulator in a brief statement said that “a number of objections were raised” by its counterparts in EU other countries; the objections centred around the draft circulated by the Irish Data Privacy Commission in May. Irish Data Privacy Commission in the face of these objections has referred the decision to the European Data Protection Board.

European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation states that all cross-border privacy cases must be handled by a single regulator, this is part of EU’s ‘one-stop-shop’ solution. The European Data Protection Board now has two and a half months to furnish a decision.

While US tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google have their headquarters in Dublin making Ireland their primary privacy regulator, under the EU system all decisions must be shared with regulators from other nations in the bloc and their feedback must be taken into consideration.

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The case in question is regarding a security breach that affected Twitter’s Android app users by allowing anyone to access protected tweets of those app users. The data breach is reported to have lasted for four years and the Irish regulator had lodged a case against Twitter for its failure to report the data breach within 72 hours.

As per EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, failure to report such breaches in time result in fines totalling around $12 million (10 million euros) or 2 percent of the company’s annual revenue. In 2019 Twitter’s reported revenue totalled $3.46 billion and therefore the potential penalty on the company could be worth $69 million. 

EU regulators scrutinise FitBit Acquisition

Meanwhile, EU regulators are also investigating the long-term implications of Google's acquisition of fitness platform FitBit and researching the possibility if the move allows the tech giant to drive rival manufactures of wearable devices, app developers and other online service providers out of business.

The Commission is also concerned that the proposed $2.1 billion deal would further entrench Google's market position in the online advertising markets with a vast amount of data already at its disposal.

“This data provides key insights about the life and the health situation of the users of these devices. Our investigation aims to ensure that control by Google over data collected through wearable devices as a result of the transaction does not distort competition,” EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager had said in a statement

(With Associated Press Inputs)

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Read: Google's Acquisition Of Fitbit Under Scrutiny By EU Regulators