If the Data Protection Authority imposes a penalty, it can be challenged before the Market Court. The Marktenhof has waived more than 800,000 euros in fines in five years. In addition, another 234,000 euros were deducted. As a result, GDPR breaches only generated 1.2 million euros for the Belgian treasury over the past five years.
This means that our country represents only 0.04 percent of all European fines. That is “because everything takes place elsewhere,” explains Hijmans Hielke, chairman of the GBA’s dispute chamber. “This mainly concerns Ireland and Luxembourg, where companies such as Meta, Google and Amazon have their registered offices.”
According to the website enforcementtracker.com, the ten highest fines are all for non-European giants, such as Meta, Amazon, TikTok and Google.