IRELAND: Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), acting under the European Union’s data protection framework, has fined Google €403 million ($462 million) for breaches involving users’ location data.
The regulator said Google infringed the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) between May 2018 and February 2020.
The DPC said in a statement that its decision followed an investigation launched in February 2020 into Google’s handling of location information collected through its web and app activity and location history, reports AFP.
In its final decision, the regulator found that Google breached the GDPR “in respect of the lawfulness and fairness of its processing of location data in web and app activity and location history.”
According to AFP, the DPC said Google’s practices could have left users unaware that their location information was being used for purposes including influencing them with targeted advertising or inferring their interests.
DPC deputy commissioner Graham Doyle said the company’s failure to provide adequate control over the use of the information was compounded by the retention of users’ location data for longer than necessary.
“As a result of Google’s failures… individuals could have been unaware that their location was being used to, for example, influence them with ads or to infer their interests,” Doyle said.
He added that the prolonged retention of the information “aggravated this loss of control.”
In addition to the financial penalty, the Irish regulator ordered Google to bring its processing of location data into compliance with the GDPR within six months.
Google had not immediately responded to enquiries at the time of filing the report.
