From 1 January to 1 May, the Dutch Data Protection Authority received nine thousand complaints about suspected privacy violations by companies and organizations. The regulator reports this on its website on Friday.
In 2018, the number of complaints since the end of May, when the new Privacy Act (AVG) came into force, was 11,413. This brings the total number of complaints in the first eleven months since the AVG to more than twenty thousand.
According to the AP, the law has caused complaints, but also reports about data breaches. It has been mandatory in the Netherlands since 2016 to report data breaches to the AP, but according to the regulator the AVG has raised awareness.
In the first four months of 2019, the AP received nearly eight thousand reports of data breaches. In the twelve months prior to that, the counter eventually stood at 20,881 reports, an average of 1,740 per month.
The Dutch Data Protection Authority supervises compliance with the GDPR. Among other things, the watchdog has the authority to issue fines if an investigation shows that a company or organization has not complied with the privacy rules.