Ireland fines Twitter over EU data protection breach
Ireland, in its role as the EU's lead data watchdog, said Tuesday it had fined Twitter 450,000 euros after the social media platform breached privacy rules.
The fine, equivalent to $539,000, follows the first cross-border case against a tech giant under GDPR, the landmark EU data protection charter launched two years ago.
Ireland hosts the regional headquarters of Twitter - as well as Apple, Facebook and Google - and is therefore largely responsible for policing their European activities.
"The Data Protection Commission has today announced a conclusion to a GDPR investigation it conducted into Twitter International Company," Tuesday's statement said.
"The DPC's investigation commenced in January 2019 following receipt of a breach notification from Twitter."
Ireland looked at whether Twitter had informed its data protection authority of a breach within 72 hours and properly documented the event.
Twitter could have been fined up to four percent of its annual global turnover - a $140 million wedge of the firm's reported $3.5 billion 2019 revenue.
The far smaller penalty handed down is "an effective, proportionate and dissuasive measure" after Twitter "infringed... GDPR in terms of a failure to notify the breach on time to the DPC and a failure to adequately document the breach", the statement added.
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