The European Commission on Friday said that eight months after the adoption of a landmark EU privacy law, More than 95000 complaints have been received by Europe's data protection regulators regarding data breaches.
Privacy enforcers have received new powers from the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) that enables them to impose fines of up to 4% of company's global revenue or EUR 20 million($23 million), whichever is higher.
Google, an Alphabet owned unit was fined 50 million EUR by French data protection regulator for failing to obtain the user's consent for personalized ads, which falls under the largest sanction under GDPR new regulations.
Private regulators have opened 225 investigation cases till date and the majority of the complaints focused on telemarketing, promotional emails and video surveillance by closed-circuit televisions and more penalties could come in the way as European Union is becoming more aware of their privacy rights.
In a joint statement made by EU digital chief Andrus Ansip, European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, EU justice chief Vera Jourova and EU digital economy commissioner Mariya Gabriel, said "What is at stake is not only the protection of our privacy, but also the protection of our democracies and ensuring the sustainability of our data-driven economies,"