Ireland’s Data Protection Commission has fined LinkedIn €310 million for violating EU data privacy rules.
The fine was imposed because LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft, used users’ personal data for targeted advertising without obtaining proper consent.
The DPC stated that LinkedIn’s consent was not given freely by users, a key violation under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
The DPC’s head of communications, Graham Doyle, said, “The processing of personal data without an appropriate legal basis is a clear and serious violation of a data subject’s fundamental right to data protection.”
LinkedIn responded by saying it believed it was already complying with GDPR, but the company is now working to ensure its practices meet the DPC’s decision.
The Irish regulator gave LinkedIn three months to make its data processing compliant with the GDPR, which was introduced in 2018 to protect European consumers from data breaches.
This fine marks LinkedIn’s first major penalty under EU rules, and Ireland has been at the center of enforcing regulations for several tech giants based in the country, such as Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook.
In a related statement, the French group “La Quadrature du Net,” which originally filed a complaint against LinkedIn in 2018, welcomed the decision but criticized the delay in issuing the fine. They stated, “The time taken shows failures in the European system.”
Ireland has issued several significant fines to tech companies as the EU works to strengthen controls on privacy, competition, and disinformation.
