Data Protection has Entered the Chat: Analysis of GDPR Fines

Before the adoption of the EU-GDPR, researchers remarkably argued on law enforcement of personal data protection being „toothless” and a “paper tiger”. Almost three years after its enforcement date, the GDPR fines are increasing, and the world is beginning to witness the effect of sizeable fines awarded to organizations. This analysis aims to discover potential correlations between GDPR fines, and equally the lack of them. Such correlations might help to tap into trends that are followed by Data Protection Authorities (DPA) in their fining practices. This paper specifically describes the fines issued by the Romanian DPA, while also containing qualitative research findings extracted from discussions with interview subjects. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the possibility to construct a prediction model that is based on linear regression analysis and provide for future direction on the field of legal data analysis.