Security News > 2020 > December > Twitter scores a first for big tech after being fined €450,000 by Ireland's data watchdog for violating the EU's GDPR

Ireland's Data Protection Commission has fined Twitter €450,000 after ruling a bug in the firm's Android app that allowed users' private messages to be publicly viewed infringed the EU's General Data Protection Regulation.

"The DPC's investigation commenced in January, 2019 following receipt of a breach notification from Twitter and the DPC has found that Twitter infringed Article 33(1) and 33(5) of the GDPR in terms of a failure to notify the breach on time to the DPC and a failure to adequately document the breach. The DPC has imposed an administrative fine of €450,000 on Twitter as an effective, proportionate and dissuasive measure" the DPC said.

"The draft decision in this inquiry, having been submitted to other Concerned Supervisory Authorities under Article 60 of the GDPR in May of this year, was the first one to go through the Article 65 process since the introduction of the GDPR and was the first Draft Decision in a 'big tech' case on which all EU supervisory authorities were consulted as Concerned Supervisory Authorities," it added.

The company is not revelling in being the first of the tech giants to be fined under GDPR by Ireland.

"Twitter worked closely with the Irish Data Protection Commission to support their investigation. We have a shared commitment to online security and privacy, and we respect the IDPC's decision, which relates to a failure in our incident response process," a spokesperson for Twitter told The Register.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2020/12/15/twitter_gdpr_fine/