There is an amendment on the table in Ireland that classifies certain information from a GDPR complaint as confidential. This could mean that details of breaches by major tech companies may no longer be publicly disclosed.
The amendment is part of the Courts and Civil Law Bill 2022, which allows the Irish privacy regulator, DPC, to classify parts of a complaint, especially information that becomes known during the course of the investigation, as confidential. As a result, communication about such information, for example, with the media, is prohibited.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) argues that Irish politicians should vote against the amendment. In theory, the amendment primarily affects cases in Ireland. However, the country is also home to many American technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and the Chinese company TikTok. This means that European privacy complaints against them are filed there.
The vote on the amendment is scheduled for next Wednesday. Regardless of the outcome, it will still be allowed for the complainant to say that a complaint has been filed and against whom. The main impact of the amendment concerns the details that come to light during the DPC’s investigation and are often shared with the parties involved.