The EU has agreed to introduce fines of up to 5% of a company’s global revenue for breaches of its proposed new unified data privacy law, which at current annual revenue levels could mean maximum potential fines of just over USD 100 million for LinkedIn and as much as USD 15 billion for Apple.
Lead regulator Helen Dixon has already audited the data control policies of Facebook and LinkedIn and aims to now conduct similar audits for Apple, Yahoo! and Adobe but declined to say how long that would take.
Her office does not currently have the power to levy fines.
The role of other EU member state regulators in influencing that decision and the ability of a new board of data regulators to overturn it remain under discussion.
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