S6, E230 - A Tiny Fine with a Big Lesson

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As 2025 kicks off, we explore the irony of the EU Commission fining itself for breaching its own data privacy regulations. The episode delves into the absurdity of minor fines, enforcement challenges, and the need for accountability in privacy governance.

• Introduction to the state of the world in 2025 
• Discussion of California’s wildfires and broader global issues 
• Examination of the EU’s self-imposed fine for data privacy violations 
• Analysis of the significance of a $412 fine 
• Importance of enforcement over mere fines 
• Teaser for upcoming discussions on legislation and privacy in 2025

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All righty, then.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcometo another episode of Privacy,
please.
2025, the new year.
Gabe Gumbs, cameron Ivey, we'rehere.
What's up, man?
What's going?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
on Welcome to 2025.
Welcome everybody.
Welcome everybody.
Hopefully the year started outwell.
So far it's been a crazy onealready.
Fires are burning, all kinds ofcrazy in the world yeah,
anybody that's listening, that'sin california everyone hope
your friends and family are safe.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
The eu commission's getting fined for violating its
own rules.
That's how we're going to start25, the world's burning, and
the eu commission is itselfviolating its own rules.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
It's quite humor, humoring humor.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
It is.
I think we could probably pokea little fun at this one.
We'll start out the year on alight note, so why don't you get
me spun up a little bit more onthis?
You were actually reading me inon this earlier today.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah.
So if anybody hasn't heard ofthis, the court ordered European
Commission to pay a fine forviolating the EU's own data
privacy rules, which is I mean,that in itself is kind of
entertaining.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I did not have that on my 2025 bingo card.
I had lots of things on my 2025bingo card.
In fact, I had the worldburning on my 2025 bingo, but,
to be fair, I've had that on mybingo card every year since
birth.
This one, though, I did nothave now.
The fine is small.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
It's fairly small, yeah okay, that's funny, but
that just made me think ofsomething even funnier.
Did you?
Did you?
What?
Do you know?
The saying cold as hell?
I'm familiar.
Did you know that it's not coldas hell, it's cold as hail?
And it's not, it's not given atwang to it, it's literally like

(01:50):
a hailstorm.
Yeah, because being cold ashell is contradiction,
contradictory of itself.
Cold as hail because hail isice.
Cold as hail.
That is another 2025 thing thatI've learned.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, so so someone just misquoted someone with a
heavy southern accent exactly,it's cold as hell it's cold as
hell out here.
Well, it'll be a cold day inhell before you can use facebook
and not get your privacy rightsviolated, because that's what
happened here, right?
So?
So this court case was broughtby a German citizen who signed

(02:30):
up for a webinar or some kind ofevent, and the sign up used one
of those, you know.
Sign up with your socialaccount yeah, it was a
conference Conference.
Sign up for a conference, youknow.

(02:57):
Sign up with your socialaccount yeah, it was a
conference.
And to its parent company, andto no so, and to and I think
Amazon also got it too, becausethe platform sits on it right
Like.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, it was a IP address browser, Amazon, and
then the website host and MetaFacebook's parent company.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, yeah.
So there you have it, the first.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
But like, let's tell them the funniest part, because,
man, they better not do itagain because they'd be out 412
cash usd.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Oh no, oh, no run oh no, I appreciate that in
principle they they held totheir principles.
They said, no, naughty, notsupposed to do that.
Here's's a fine.
Now you know the $412, I have asuspicion that that's not a lot
to stop a lot of organizationsfrom running afoul of the rules.

(03:51):
But something tells me the EUCommission themselves shall
clean up their own act.
At least they'd be unable tolook at others straight in the
eye and tell them that they'vegot to clean up theirs right.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
So yeah, it is interesting because, I mean, I
kind of understand it.
It's not very, it's not like abig issue, but it's kind of nice
that they actually didsomething about it.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Right.
It's nice that they acknowledgetheir own shortcomings.
And you can't go tellingeveryone else that they've you
know.
You can't go around policingeveryone else and tell them they
have to adhere to these rulesand then you yourself not hold
yourself to that standard, right?
So it is good to see that theEU Commission is holding itself
to that standard.
I can only hope that that meansthat we can see more fines
coming, and I'm not rooting forfines so much as I'm rooting for

(04:35):
enforcement.
Just to be clear, I'm rootingfor enforcement more than I'm
rooting for fines.
But if it takes fines to getenforcement, then fine, so be it
.
Pun intended, I'm okay withthat.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, and this apparently was the first of its
kind and this was back in 2022when he actually Signed up, so
it took a little while, but,like you said, I think more
might pop up.
This might be the first.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
This would be interesting.
Well, I know this, as more ofthose pop up this year.
You know who's going to becovering it.
We're going to be.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
I thought you were going to say Meta.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
He'll be at the root of it.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
We definitely gonna be.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
I thought you were gonna say meta.
They'll be at the root of it.
We definitely will be covering.
We'll definitely be covering it.
We'll be covering it.
We'll be covering so much more.
This year.
We got some uh, we got some newlive guests coming up.
We've got a whole lot morecoverage.
You're gonna see us in somemore social platforms, meta not
being one of them yeah, a lot ofexciting things, like we talked

(05:28):
about.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
At the end of the year Also, you're going to be
seeing some physical changes andsome exciting things, so we're
excited about it.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
It's going to be good .
It's going to be great.
What else is going on in theprivacy and security world that
we should mention?
I think that's a good place tokick off the new year on a light
note.
I think so too.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
We're going to have next week.
We're going to have on DaveBarmore, which he works at
Runway Strategies, so he's aregulatory expert, so we're
going to have a nice talk withhim.
We'll maybe even talk a littlebit about the 20th January 20th
inauguration and what that couldmean for privacy and security
in terms of changes that may becoming in the new office Topic.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Great topic.
There are a lot of folks thatoffline have asked me similar
questions about whatexpectations they might be able
to set administratively in termsof legislation that will make
it not make it things, how itwill impact, how even
enforcement will be handled.
So looking forward to thatconversation next week for sure.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yeah, me too.
Got some other ones excitingcoming up and just really
excited for the year, so I can'tthink of anything else that is
top of mind right now.
This is obviously just a shortlittle episode, but Just a
teaser 2024, 2025 teaser 2025teaser yeah, yeah.
We're going to have a new look.
We're going to have a lot, alot of good things coming, so

(06:53):
yeah, it's going to be, it'sgoing to be excellent.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Keep, stay tuned, Stay, stay alert.
So we're coming at you.
Cam Ivy, Gabe Gumbs privacyplease.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Appreciate it.