{"id":525963,"date":"2026-06-30T14:47:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T14:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/525963\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T14:47:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T14:47:16","slug":"unprecedented-jump-in-complaints-to-data-watchdog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/525963\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Unprecedented’ jump in complaints to data watchdog"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has described as “unprecedented” a 45% jump in complaints to its office last year.<\/p>\n

The DPC said that many of the people who lodged complaints had used artificial intelligence (AI) to assist them.<\/p>\n

The commission’s annual report shows that it received 16,160 new cases from individuals in 2025.<\/p>\n

That number is expected to be even higher this year and could hit more than 20,000 complaints.<\/p>\n

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11,734 cases were concluded last year, a 12% increase on 2024.<\/p>\n

The most common issues raised concerned non-responses to requests for personal information, concerns relating to the processing of personal data, and issues relating to social media accounts, many of which fell outside the scope of the DPC.<\/p>\n

“2025 saw an unprecedented 45% increase in cases received by the DPC, many of which involved the use of AI by persons making complaints, adding to the volume and complexity of the documentation presented,” said Dr Des Hogan, Chairperson, Commissioner for Data Protection.<\/p>\n

“At the same time, the scale and complexity of the use of personal data by rapidly advancing AI technologies increased significantly, with heightened risks and harms for individuals,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"3
\n(L-R) Data Protection Commissioners Dale Sunderland, Dr Des Hogan (Chair), and Niamh Sweeney<\/p>\n

“Despite challenges such as these, we saw a significant increase in cases concluded throughout the year,” Dr Hogan said.<\/p>\n

Commissioner won’t investigate certain matters at Meta<\/p>\n

In September last year, the Government announced the appointment of Niamh Sweeney as a third Data Protection Commissioner.<\/p>\n

Ms Sweeney has previously held senior positions with technology companies including WhatsApp and Facebook, both run by Meta.<\/p>\n

Privacy campaign groups, including the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, have complained to the Government and the European Commission expressing concerns about Ms Sweeney’s previous roles.<\/p>\n

Ms Sweeney said she would not be investigating any matters at Meta that occurred during the years she worked for the company.<\/p>\n

\"In
\nNiamh Sweeney held a senior position at Meta before being appointed to the DPC<\/p>\n

“On my first day in the role, to guard against the potential for any possible perception of an issue, I had a conversation with my co-commissioners, and we decided, as a college, that I would absent myself from any matters that occurred or arose during the period of time that I worked for the companies,” Ms Sweeney said.<\/p>\n

“So in the case of Meta, that would be anything that occurred or arose between 2015 and 2021, so I don’t take part in those decisions,” she added.<\/p>\n

“I think a certain amount of scrutiny is absolutely to be expected and appropriate but what I would also remind everybody of is that I’m a statutory officer, appointed by the Government with statutory obligations,” she said.<\/p>\n

“That includes being governed by several pieces of legislation that includes the Ethics in Public Office Act, the Regulation of Lobbying Act, the Official Secrets Act, and various provisions of the Data Protection Act,” Ms Sweeney said.<\/p>\n

Fines imposed<\/p>\n

The biggest fine imposed by the DPC last year was a \u20ac530 million penalty on TikTok for the transfer of the personal data of European users to China.<\/p>\n

The video-sharing platform is currently appealing the ruling.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThe DPC last year impsoed a \u20ac530m penalty on TikTok<\/p>\n

Since May 2018, the DPC has issued \u20ac4.04 billion in fines but only around \u20ac20 million has been paid due to legal challenges being taken by the companies involved.<\/p>\n

‘Sharenting’ survey results<\/p>\n

Alongside its annual results, the DPC has also published details of a survey about “sharenting”, the practice of parents sharing photos, videos and information about their children on social media.<\/p>\n

The research was undertaken as part of the DPC’s ‘Pause Before You Post’ ad campaign.<\/p>\n

The study was conducted in collaboration with the French Data Protection Authority and involved the surveying of more than 1,000 parents in both Ireland and France.<\/p>\n

It found that three out four of parents have shared content relating to their children online in the past year, and one in-three parents share daily or several times a week about their children.<\/p>\n

Of those who share content of their children online, 14% of parents in Ireland consider themselves to be “parent influencers”, compared with 10% in France.<\/p>\n

40% of parents said they never or rarely seek their children’s consent before sharing content.<\/p>\n

In Ireland, 66% of parents identified the risk of their children’s image being misused by strangers and 55% said they were concerned about the use of AI and deepfakes in relation to this imagery.<\/p>\n

One in ten parents in both Ireland and France said they regretted sharing content about their child online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has described as “unprecedented” a 45% jump in complaints to its office last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-525963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}