The Irish Council for Civil Liberties ('ICCL') announced, on 4 February 2021, that the EU Civil Liberties Committee ('LIBE Committee') has prepared a draft motion for resolution, calling the European Commission ('the Commission') to begin infringement proceedings against the Irish Data Protection Commission ('DPC') for failing to enforce the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) ('GDPR'). In particular, the ICCL highlights the European Parliament's ('the Parliament') concerns within the draft motion, i.e. that the whole judgment in Data Protection Commissioner v. Facebook Ireland Limited, Maximillian Schrems (C-311/18) ('the Schrems II Case'), was started by the DPC, instead of taking a decision within its powers pursuant to Article 58 of the GDPR, and that several complaints against data breaches of the GDPR filed on 25th May 2018, have not yet been decided by DPC which is the lead authority for these cases. In addition to this, the ICCL notes that the Parliament strongly condemns the attempt of the DPC to shift the costs of the judicial procedure to Maximilian Schrems.

Furthermore, the ICCL highlights that there is growing concern that the DPC, as the lead supervisory authority, is failing to adequately regulate the big tech companies headquartered in Dublin. Moreover, the ICCL notes that it had, on 1 February 2021, sent a letter to the Irish Government alerting the same of the strategic economic risk from failure to uphold the GDPR.

You can read the ICCL's press release here, the LIBE Committee's draft motion here, and the ICCL's letter here.