A former lobbyist for Meta is now in charge of the EU’s chief regulator for big tech firms, according to reporting by The Irish Times. Niamh Sweeney has been named commissioner of the Data Protection Commission (DPC), which is one of the largest EU data protection authorities.
Prior to this, she worked at Meta for six years. Sweeney was director of European public policy at WhatsApp and head of Irish public policy at Facebook for many of those years. She becomes the third active commissioner of the regulatory body, joining Des Hogan and Dale Sutherland.
“As the responsibilities and scope of the DPC continue to grow, I am pleased that three commissioners will now lead and manage this key regulatory body,” said Ireland’s Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan.
The organization has welcomed Sweeney’s appointment, saying it looks forward to “working with her as the DPC continues to uphold the EU’s fundamental right to data protection.” However, this regulatory body is notorious for being friendly to big tech, as is Ireland in general.
The country offers a low corporate tax rate and tends to be lenient when it comes to regulations. The DPC has developed a reputation for not actually calling on big tech companies to pay out fines for violating laws like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. As a matter of fact, the organization has only managed to collect around 0.6 percent of the billions of dollars in fines levied toward tech companies.
Some of these violations were attributed to Meta itself. The company was fined nearly $300 million after a data breach impacted Facebook accounts throughout the globe. Meta was fined another $100 million after it was found to be storing passwords in plain text, which is a GDPR violation. Here’s hoping Sweeney is willing to step up against her old bosses.
