- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Neil Hodge2021-06-15T15:11:00
Amazon reportedly faces a fine of more than $425 million under the GDPR that would show EU regulators firmly have Big Tech companies—and their practices—in their crosshairs.
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Amazon disclosed it has received notice of a €746 million (U.S. $887 million) GDPR fine in Luxembourg for unlawful processing of personal data. The company intends to appeal the penalty, which would be more than 15 times the current record under the law.
European investigations into whether Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud-based services infringe EU privacy rules have once again shone a spotlight on how—and when—the United States and the European Union intend to come up with a new Privacy Shield.
Recent cases in Germany, France, and Austria underscore the difficulty of getting EU members on the same page regarding GDPR enforcement—particularly when other local laws take priority.
It has been four years since the European Union’s flagship data privacy legislation came into force, but concerns are already being raised about whether the General Data Protection Regulation is being outpaced by technological developments and their use of data.
So far, Europe’s wide-reaching data privacy rules have seemingly failed to curb Big Tech firms’ use and abuse of citizens’ personal data. As a result, some EU data regulators are pursuing their own investigations—often through other legislation.
Belgian Data Protection Authority head David Stevens and Member of European Parliament Axel Voss discussed ways the General Data Protection Regulation could be improved for the future during a keynote at CW’s virtual Europe event.
