GDPR Violations And Fines: Trends, Insights, and Compliance Strategies

Editor’s Note: This article was originally authored by our colleague and BARC Fellow, Douglas Laney, and was first published on Forbes.com. We are republishing it with full permission, as we believe its insights are highly relevant to the topics we cover and valuable for our community.

Since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enacted, the landscape of data privacy has fundamentally changed. For organizations doing business in or with the European Union, compliance is not optional, and the penalties for failure can be severe. An analysis of the violations and fines levied over the past several years reveals instructive trends and provides critical insights for any leader focused on risk management.

A key trend is that regulators are increasingly focusing on the substance of compliance, not just the paperwork. The largest fines have often been issued not for a lack of a privacy policy, but for fundamental failures in data governance—such as collecting more data than necessary (data minimization), retaining it for too long, or failing to secure it properly.

Furthermore, the data shows that violations are not limited to a single industry. While tech giants have faced the largest penalties, companies in retail, hospitality, and healthcare have also been hit with significant fines. This demonstrates that any organization handling customer data is under scrutiny. For compliance leaders, the message is clear: a proactive, holistic approach to data management is the only effective strategy to mitigate the significant financial and reputational risks of a GDPR violation.

The trends in GDPR enforcement underscore the financial risks of retaining unnecessary data. A proactive strategy to mitigate this involves not just securing data, but knowing when to defensibly dispose of it. For professionals interested in this advanced data management discipline, our BARC+ subscription offers unrestricted access to our full research library. A relevant analysis on this topic is our guide to data disposal and minimization.