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Last year, Norway’s privacy watchdog imposed a ban on Metaplatforms related to its processing of user data. It was a risky move for small offices, but it paid off when European Union regulators expanded the restrictions across the region a few months later. It also boosted the reputation of the agency’s new boss, one of the latest additions to Europe’s growing roster of female data regulators seeking to rein in big tech.
Rein Coll, a former tech lawyer, will take the job in 2022, an elite authority who can wield the magic wand of the region’s strict data protection law, the General Data Protection Regulation, to force change at the world’s biggest companies. joined the group. The law, which took effect in 2018, turned data regulation, once considered a legal backwater, into a prominent field and brought attention to the many women working there.
More than half of the 30 authorities tasked with enforcing the EU’s data rules are led by women, and their role as watchdogs is likely to expand further as comprehensive new EU technology regulations come into force. there is. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland all have female data commissioners, as do France, Spain, Luxembourg and, until recently, Ireland.
Women regulators are also taking the lead in other areas. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager made her mark again this week when she handed Apple the third-largest competition fine ever paid by the EU. Mr. Vestager was recently named one of the world’s three most powerful antitrust watchdogs, along with CMA CEO Sarah Cardel of the United Kingdom and US Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. ing.
Andrea Jelinek, Austria’s former top tech regulator, said in a November speech that women “have shaped what this field of law is today.” “When I first started working in data protection, there were very few men,” she recalls. Furthermore, the women who took on these roles “often did so in addition to their day jobs as lawyers, engineers, and businesspeople.”
“My theory is that men were not attracted to data protection because it was an area of human rights law and money was not as much of a consideration,” she added.
As American technology giants tightened their grip on Europe, women continued to fill regulatory roles. “It probably started 10 years ago,” says Wim Nauweraerts, a data protection lawyer with more than 20 years of experience.
Early pioneers include Isabelle Falk-Pierrotan, former head of France’s data protection watchdog and an active enforcer of the EU’s pre-GDPR data protection rules. He warned that “two or three countries will take the lead in dealing with the big companies.” The rest of the area would then “watch the train go by.” Another is former EU commissioner Vivian Reding, who in 2012 devised a so-called one-stop-shop scheme to simplify data protection procedures for businesses and citizens.
But the biggest name is Helen Dixon, Ireland’s former data protection commissioner. When the GDPR came into force, giving regulators the power to impose fines of up to 4% of a company’s annual revenue for violating data protection rights or failing to prevent a major data breach, her office quickly became Europe’s top monitoring agency. She said some of America’s leading tech companies, including Meta Inc., Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, had set up EU bases in Ireland, and Dixon was responsible for overseeing compliance at those companies.
During his tenure, Mr Dixon launched more than 80 investigations into the world’s biggest companies and imposed fines of more than €2.8 billion. Some of her most extensive investigations have included Twitter and ByteDance-owned TikTok, but no company has come under more scrutiny than Meta, which received collective fines of more than €2.5 billion in a series of investigations. Ta. Dixon made history last year when she imposed a €1.2 billion penalty on Meta. This surpasses the previous record held by Luxembourg data chief Tine Larsson, who imposed a €746 million data protection fine on Amazon.com in 2021. Both decisions are under appeal. Further investigation regarding , Meta, TikTok, Google, and Twitter is still pending.
One of the biggest challenges in regulatory work is ensuring that judgments stand up in court, as laws and procedures vary across EU member states. Mr Dixon regularly met with large companies, in some cases based in Ireland, to build his case, and although some activists may have seen this as bias, the regulator was deemed necessary.
“Our discussions with companies are not about helping those companies,” Dixon explained in a January interview. Although her office helps organizations interpret the law, she said, the real purpose of such meetings is “to learn and understand what data processing operations are.” Ta. She said: “It’s very arrogant of us as regulators to think we know everything.”
Mr Dixon, who stepped down in February after nearly a decade in the role, said the regulator would be forced to step down over the years as new content moderation and digital antitrust laws come into effect, as well as a number of other EU laws. I am confident that I will have the opportunity to apply my experience. Through GDPR. When the law first came into force, regulators from the 27-nation bloc could review EU-wide cases before the watchdog made a final decision, creating tensions over jurisdiction and speed.
The investigation followed criticism that the Irish regulator was taking too long to complete EU-wide investigations, which ultimately led to the decision to increase the number of national commissioners from one to three. . Last year, the European Commission, with the support of Vice President Vera Jourova, also launched legal adjustments to streamline cooperation between data protection authorities and help deal with major cases more quickly and efficiently. These changes come as a new regulatory environment places unprecedented demands on data protection lawyers to step up their game, as well as increasing resources and expertise on already overburdened oversight bodies. These changes come at a perfect time, as unprecedented demands will be placed on them.
The versatility the field has shown in adapting to change is reflected in the work itself. Data protection is more flexible than the conservative, male-dominated field of law, which may be one reason why it is attractive to women. Before she became head of Norway’s data watchdog, Ms. Koll was a partner at a corporate law firm where she worked for five years. When I was approached for this job, “The first thing I told them is that I’m a single mom with two kids. I leave the office at 4 o’clock every day. What do I do outside of the office? You can work the hours, but I’m retiring.” She does not consider this a responsibility, but believes that her confidence was “what they needed.”
And as the field becomes more famous, it begins to attract a wider range of practitioners: more men. This has raised concerns that women may soon be forced out of top jobs.
Data lawyer Nauweraerts is skeptical. She noted that many of the women leading the field are uniquely qualified to do so thanks to decades of experience. She suspects that “women who have risen to such positions will suddenly be pushed aside by men.” The EU’s top data officers share the same view.
“Women have been here for a long time,” said Anu Taras, Finland’s data ombudsman and head of the European Data Protection Board. And despite recent changes, the field remains one where “there are a lot of experienced women who have decided to stay.”
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