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That's not remotely how this works. The fines are imposed by the government; in the UK that means the ICO. They cannot be levied as the result of a lawsuit br
by Lazare 9y ago
That's not remotely how this works.
The fines are imposed by the government; in the UK that means the ICO. They cannot be levied as the result of a lawsuit brought by private parties. The ICO also has discretion when levying fines, and they've stressed repeatedly they will not be reaching for maximum penalties.
GDPR offers the prospect of big fines if you screw up badly enough. It also is likely to lead to a lot of lawsuits. But there are totally separate issues, and cannot be conflated as you are doing.
OP might get sued. And he might get fined for €20 million (although realistically...no, of course not). But he won't get sued for €20 million.
> The fine is the bait that draws the true threat.
That's simply incorrect. You're looking at a normal civil case, with normal damages.
- dleslie 9y agoSo they have a risk of having to defend themselves in front of a regulator instead of in civil court. The risk remains.
- Lazare 9y agoThey're...completely different risks? We started out talking about the risk of an opportunistic civil suit filed by a law firm working on a contingency basis seeking a €2m payout; now that we've established that isn't possible, we're talking about the risk of an actual fine for breaking an actual law levied by an actual regulator (who is on record as saying that large fines would be a weapon of last resort in the most extreme cases). So other than the risk being much lower, the likely penalties much lower, the chance of an unfair outcome being much lower, and the incentives and mechanisms being completely different... ...sure, the risk remains.