The number of data breaches reported to the Data Protection Commission soared by 70% last year, as new data protection rules were introduced across Europe.
In total, the watchdog was notified of 4,740 breaches during 2018, with 3,542 of those lodged in the seven months after the General Data Protection Regulation came into force in May.
The figures are contained in the first annual report of the organisation since it changed from being the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner to the DPC in the middle of last year. "All these inquiries should reach the decision and adjudication stage later this year, and it's our intention that the analysis and conclusions in the context of those inquiries will provide precedents for better implementation of the principles of the GDPR across key aspects of internet and ad tech services," Ms Dixon said in her report.
"While it would be an ideal world if there were fewer, the DPC's experience generally is that most organisations engage with the DPC and accept our guidance around mitigating losses for affected individuals, communicating any high risks to them and learning lessons from the breach to avoid a repeat," Ms Dixon wrote in the report.
The biggest culprit was email marketing, accounting for 18 of these complaints, followed by SMS marketing and telephone marketing .
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