Another Big Tech fine: Google penalised €403m by Irish data watchdog

Google has been fined €403 million by Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) after a six-year investigation into how the tech giant tracked and stored users' location data.The DPC, which acts as Google's lead regulator in the EU, launched the inquiry in February 2020 following complaints from several European consumer rights groups, including BEUC.Investigators examined three Google features, including Web & App Activity, Location History and Location Accuracy, and covering the period from 25 May 2018 when the GDPR came into force to 4 February 2020.'Loss of control' over personal dataThe DPC found Google had breached the GDPR on multiple fronts.Regulators concluded the company failed to process location data lawfully and fairly through Web & App Activity and Location History, and failed to demonstrate compliance with the lawfulness, fairness and transparency principle for Location Accuracy.The DPC also found Google fell short of its transparency obligations across all three features, and retained…