Belgium’s Data Protection Authority (DPA) has issued a mere €2.2m in fines for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) breaches over five years, a report by L'Echo has shown.
Out of the breaches, nearly half of them were cancelled or reduced by the Market Court.
The National Authority, when levying a fine, can see its decision challenged at the Market Court. In Belgium, the court has cancelled more than €800,000 in GDPR fines.
The institution also reduced levied fines totalling €234,000. As a result, Belgium will collect barely more than half of the imposed fines, amounting to approximately €1.2m.
Translation: Top ten in fines for GDPR breaches in Belgium between 2019 and 2023. Credit: Belga
With Belgium only contributing 0.04% of total European GDPR fines, DPA Appeals Chamber President, Hijmans Hielke suggests the "real action is happening elsewhere".
Ireland and Luxembourg are the two leading European countries in this regard, primarily due to housing the headquarters of targeted companies like Meta, Google and Amazon.
According to enforcementtracker.com, the top ten largest fines are all attributed to non-European digital giants such as Meta, Amazon, TikTok, and Google.
