Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 26 September 2019

Public Accounts Committee

2018 Financial Statements of the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner

9:00 am

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is all great. However, if the Irish DPC has to take a prosecution against one of the major social media companies, does it have to carry the cost of that? There could be a benefit for all EU citizens. I saw a case reported yesterday where Ms Dixon's colleague in France had a case against Facebook about the right to be forgotten. There are two sides to it. First, it succeeded but it only applied in the EU and the court had no jurisdiction on the right to be forgotten outside the EU. That is a benefit to all EU citizens. Did the French data protection commission carry the cost of that for the benefit of all EU citizens? Would Ms Dixon have been aware of that? Based on what she said, if it was going to take a case and make a decision, she had to be consulted on that, be made aware of it and either object or not object. Given that Facebook is headquartered in Ireland, why was that case taken by France.

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