Apple once again under investigation for GDPR data practices

Apple is currently marketing itself as the alternative to Google’s data slurping ecosystem of devices and services, but the company is facing increasing scrutiny from Irish data regulators to make sure they live up to their claims.

Reuters report has Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) has opened an investigation into how Apple makes personal data it collected on users available on request, part of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

This is the DPC’s 3rd probe into Apple, with two investigations in 2018 looking at how Apple processes personal data for targeted advertising and whether its privacy policy on the processing of that data is sufficiently transparent.

The Irish DPC has jurisdiction on Apple as, like many tech companies,  its European headquarters are based there.

Other companies being looked into are Facebook, who had 8 probes (plus two for WhatsApp and one for Instagram), Twitter (like Apple) with three, Google one and Microsoft’s LinkedIn one.

While GDPR regulators have the power to impose fines up to 4% of global revenue or 20 million euros, whichever is higher, this is for the most egregious repeat offenders, and in most cases, the result is an advisory process which allows companies to get back into compliance.

Via Winfuture