Compliance

GDPR Fines Exceeded €170 Million in 2020

Fines issued for violations of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2020 exceeded €170 million, or roughly $200 million.

Eduard Kovacs

January 5, 2021

Fines issued for violations of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2020 exceeded €170 million, or roughly $200 million.

The GDPR, which requires organizations to protect the personal data and privacy of EU citizens, came into force in May 2018, and, based on publicly available information, it since resulted in fines totaling more than €250 million (roughly $300 million).

Due to the fact that not all fines are publicly reported and due to currency conversions it’s difficult to determine the exact total amount of GDPR fines. According to cloud management solutions provider CoreView, which keeps track of major GDPR fines, the total amount since 2018 is €288 million, of which approximately €103 million in 2019 and €184 million in 2020.

Financial analysis website Finbold, using data from enforcementtracker.com, calculated that fines totaled €171.3 million in 2020. Based on this data, Italy paid the most fines, totaling €58 million, followed by the UK at €44 million and Germany at €37 million.

In terms of the number of fines in 2020, Spain is at the top with 128 fines, followed by Italy (34), Romania (26), Sweden (15), Belgium (13) and Norway (11).

Clothing retailer H&M got the biggest fine last year (€35 million), followed by Telecom Italia (€28 million), British Airways (€22 million), Marriott (€20 million), and Italian telecom operators Wind Tre (€17 million) and Vodafone Italia (€12 million).

2020 GDPR fines -- Credits: Finbold.com

Related: The Global Reach of GDPR

Written By Eduard Kovacs

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

Latest News

Click to comment

Mapping Threat Intelligence to the NIST Compliance Framework Part 2

How threat intelligence is critical when justifying budget for GRC personnel, and for threat intelligence, incident response, security operations and CISO buyers.

Landon Winkelvoss

Password Dependency: How to Break the Cycle

Hackers rarely hack in anymore. They log in using stolen, weak, default, or otherwise compromised credentials. That’s why it’s so critical to break the password dependency cycle. But how can this be done?

Torsten George

Why CISOs Make Great Board Members

Cybersecurity-related risk is a top concern, so boards need to know they have the proper oversight in place. Even as first-timers, successful CISOs make for successful board members.

Galina Antova

A Change in Mindset: From a Threat-based to Risk-based Approach to Security

A threat-based approach to security often focuses on a checklist to meet industry requirements but overlooked the key component of security: reducing risk.

Marie Hattar

Secrets to a Good Security Webinar or Conference Presentation

Tips for making a presentation that will help improve the state of security programs and reflect favorably on the presenters and their companies

Joshua Goldfarb

Application Security

Source Code Security Firm Cycode Launches With $4.6 Million in Funding

Cycode, a startup that provides solutions for protecting software source code, emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday with $4.6 million in seed funding.

Eduard KovacsSeptember 24, 2019

Audits

Majority of GAO’s Cybersecurity Recommendations Not Implemented by Federal Agencies

Out of the 335 public recommendations on a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy made since 2010, 190 were not implemented by federal agencies as of December...

Ionut Arghire4 days ago