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Once again, under GDPR, it is entirely legal to issue fines without a warning. Therefore, in any case where it does not say that there was a warning, one can r

Once again, under GDPR, it is entirely legal to issue fines without a warning. Therefore, in any case where it does not say that there was a warning, one can reasonably assume that no warning occurred - especially given that in some cases (according to you, most cases) they did say something about a warning. The absence of the mention of a warning in this context implies that there wasn’t one. The point is, and no one has been able to refute this, that warnings are not required under GDPR. Even if they have issued warnings in most cases thus far, it is still early days. As these actions under GDPR become more common, there is no guarantee that even those countries that have been issuing warnings first will continue to do so. The enforcement of regulations that have the potential to generate massive revenue streams for government entities tends to become increasingly aggressive and creative as time goes on. I don’t understand why anyone, even those in favor of GDPR, would attempt to refute the black and white text of the law. No warnings are required under GDPR, and thus the potential exists for fines to be issued without warning. There is no argument or opinion to be interjected here. This is a binary fact. Are warnings required? No, warnings are not required. It’s that simple.

tempestn 7y ago
No one is saying warnings are required. I said I expected one was given, because 1) it appears to be the common practice, and 2) it is the reasonable thing to do. So I doubt that this person would have been fined without a warning, but indeed, I have no way of knowing. That said, I'm open to the idea that perhaps the law should stipulate a warning, but perhaps the language around proportionality/reasonableness is sufficient.
- downandout 7y ago
  perhaps the language around proportionality/reasonableness is sufficient. It is not. Those terms have enough legal leeway to drive a truck through.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Once again under UK drug law it is entirely legal to send someone to prison for five years (I think) for an eighth of weed. Except it never happens. To get straight to a maximum penalty there would be very damning circumstances. It's why we have regulators, judges and magistrates - to apply judgement and proportionality. Sure there's a few headline cases of some absurdly harsh sentence - and just about always the details reveal there were a lot of very damning circumstances that make the sentence seem pretty reasonable. Do US judges rubber stamp a maximum sentence each and every time? No. Does every visit by police result in prosecution? No. Is every warning and scaling mechanism offenders get in the US expressed perfectly in statute? No. Otherwise you would have fired all the judges as surplus to requirements. You're just spreading FUD. Understand the legal system in Europe before spreading such rubbish.
- downandout 7y ago
  You appear to be spreading false rumors about them issuing warnings even though they don’t have to. When I organized the data on this site by fine amount, not a single case on the front page said anything about any of the companies fined having received a single warning. So, by comparing this to legal situations where “it never happens” you are purposely misrepresenting the risk of receiving a fine under GDPR without any type of warning. While having an eighth of weed rarely if ever results in a 5 year sentence in the U.K., clearly not receiving a warning before being fined occurs quite frequently. You have made a false equivalence between these two things.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Why would you expect a site built to report GDPR fines and penalties to report GDPR warnings? ICO haven't yet released aggregate figures for GDPR, it's too soon. GDPR is a minor update of DPA, and they have released aggregate numbers on that for a while. Fines are levied in a tiny minority of cases. Warnings are far more common, as is steady escalation. The expectation here is the proportions will remain the same under GDPR. On weed, actually no, because the default action for weed for the vast majority is just a warning. So no, it isn't clear that getting fined without warning first happens quite frequently, because that's also simply not true. You're very unlikely to see a court without a warning first.
laughinghan 7y ago
The absence of the mention of a warning in this context implies that there wasn’t one. Why? Many of these summaries aren't official justifications of the fine, they're news clippings. What leads you to believe that if a warning was issued, the news would always mention it? They're not trying to justify the fine, they're trying to inform the public, and they can never include every detail, they always have to leave stuff out. What leads you to believe the news always mentions warnings if issued? I don’t understand why anyone, even those in favor of GDPR, would attempt to refute the black and white text of the law. Literally no one in this thread has attempted that, and you incessantly repeating this strawman is why you're being repeatedly downvoted.

tempestn 7y ago

No one is saying warnings are required. I said I expected one was given, because 1) it appears to be the common practice, and 2) it is the reasonable thing to do. So I doubt that this person would have been fined without a warning, but indeed, I have no way of knowing. That said, I'm open to the idea that perhaps the law should stipulate a warning, but perhaps the language around proportionality/reasonableness is sufficient.

downandout 7y ago
perhaps the language around proportionality/reasonableness is sufficient. It is not. Those terms have enough legal leeway to drive a truck through.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Once again under UK drug law it is entirely legal to send someone to prison for five years (I think) for an eighth of weed. Except it never happens. To get straight to a maximum penalty there would be very damning circumstances. It's why we have regulators, judges and magistrates - to apply judgement and proportionality. Sure there's a few headline cases of some absurdly harsh sentence - and just about always the details reveal there were a lot of very damning circumstances that make the sentence seem pretty reasonable. Do US judges rubber stamp a maximum sentence each and every time? No. Does every visit by police result in prosecution? No. Is every warning and scaling mechanism offenders get in the US expressed perfectly in statute? No. Otherwise you would have fired all the judges as surplus to requirements. You're just spreading FUD. Understand the legal system in Europe before spreading such rubbish.

downandout 7y ago
You appear to be spreading false rumors about them issuing warnings even though they don’t have to. When I organized the data on this site by fine amount, not a single case on the front page said anything about any of the companies fined having received a single warning. So, by comparing this to legal situations where “it never happens” you are purposely misrepresenting the risk of receiving a fine under GDPR without any type of warning. While having an eighth of weed rarely if ever results in a 5 year sentence in the U.K., clearly not receiving a warning before being fined occurs quite frequently. You have made a false equivalence between these two things.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Why would you expect a site built to report GDPR fines and penalties to report GDPR warnings? ICO haven't yet released aggregate figures for GDPR, it's too soon. GDPR is a minor update of DPA, and they have released aggregate numbers on that for a while. Fines are levied in a tiny minority of cases. Warnings are far more common, as is steady escalation. The expectation here is the proportions will remain the same under GDPR. On weed, actually no, because the default action for weed for the vast majority is just a warning. So no, it isn't clear that getting fined without warning first happens quite frequently, because that's also simply not true. You're very unlikely to see a court without a warning first.

laughinghan 7y ago

The absence of the mention of a warning in this context implies that there wasn’t one. Why? Many of these summaries aren't official justifications of the fine, they're news clippings. What leads you to believe that if a warning was issued, the news would always mention it? They're not trying to justify the fine, they're trying to inform the public, and they can never include every detail, they always have to leave stuff out. What leads you to believe the news always mentions warnings if issued? I don’t understand why anyone, even those in favor of GDPR, would attempt to refute the black and white text of the law. Literally no one in this thread has attempted that, and you incessantly repeating this strawman is why you're being repeatedly downvoted.