Brave Browser Reports That EU Governments Are Failing at Privacy Protection

Published at: April 29, 2020

On April 27, Brave browser filed a complaint urging the European Commission to take action against EU governments that fail to adequately protect their citizens.

A recent report compiled by the Brave team concludes that most EU member states do not adequately staff their General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, enforcers:

“Only five of Europe’s 28 national GDPR enforcers have more than 10 tech specialists. Europe’s GDPR enforcers do not have the capacity to investigate Big Tech.”

Source: Brave

Regulators can’t afford to fight for privacy

Furthermore, the report stipulates that the enforcement agencies are underfinanced, which leads to reluctance on their part to engage in expensive litigation against tech giants:

“Even when wrongdoing is clear, DPAs [data protection authorities] hesitate to use their powers against major tech firms because they can not afford the cost of legally defending their decisions against ‘Big Tech’ legal firepower.”

Source: Brave

The complaint filed by Dr. Johnny Ryan, Brave’s chief policy and industry relations officer, urges the European Commission to take action and if necessary to refer the case to the European Court of Justice:

“Brave is requesting that the European Commission launch an infringement procedure against the European Member State Governments, and refer them to the European Court of Justice if necessary.”

The complaint lists every EU member state with the exception of Germany, which, according to the report, is the only nation that adequately staffs and budgets its data protection authority.

Dr. Ryan told Cointelegraph that despite the economic crisis, he expects the European governments to increase financing of its data protection authorities:

“I expect a budgetary increase. Not least because the credibility of the GDPR is critically important to the EU.”

Battle against Google

Previously, Brave filed a complaint against Google with its main European regulator, accusing it of violating Article 5(1)b of the GDPR. It should be noted that Brave is built on Chromium framework, an open-source project from Google. Dr. Ryan does not believe that Brave’s activism could lead to the tech giant’s adverse reaction against it.

Perhaps, with massive stimulus packages being thrown around, some of this money could be routed to the data protection authorities.

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