Almost 7 years after the GDPR came into force, noyb remains to be one of the leading European forces pushing for the fundamental right to data protection for all users. To date, our legal work has resulted in administrative fines totalling €1.69 billion. Our achievements in 2024 prove once again that we can make an impact: In addition to filing 36 new complaints, we also obtained a number of new decisions from authorities and even a ruling from the European Court of Justice (CJEU).
Our cases in 2024. Among the most significant cases in 2024 are noyb’s first complaints against Meta’s and Twitter’s (X) plan to unlawfully take the personal data of European users to train their AI systems. We filed 11 complaints against Meta in June 2024, resulting in a pause of the training plans for the rest of the year. In August, we followed up with 9 complaints against Twitter’s very similar AI plans.
In addition, we continued to work on topics such as unlawful credit scoring and filed complaints against Microsoft in schools, ad tracking in Google Chrome and against the EU Parliament because of a massive data breach.
Court decisions and fines. In 2024, we also obtained a number of new decisions from authorities and even a ruling from the European Court of Justice (CJEU). Among other things, the Dutch data protection authority found that Netflix didn’t provide its customers clear enough information about what it exactly does with their data. The streaming provider was fined €4.75 million. In addition, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) sided with noyb and decided that the EU Commission used illegal microtargeting to politically influence people living in the Netherlands.
Last but not least, the CJEU (in its ruling C-446/21) fully backed a lawsuit brought against Meta over its Facebook service. The CJEU decided on two questions. With this, it massively limits the use of personal data for online advertising. It has also limited the use of publicly available personal data to the originally intended purposes for publication.
noyb is qualified to bring collective redress cases. Since 2024, noyb is an approved Qualified Entity in Austria and Ireland, which enables us to bring injunctions and redress measures such as class action lawsuits. While this will be a challenge on an organisational, technical and resource level, we are convinced that collective redress will be an important building block to take action against large-scale wilful violations of the GDPR.
Thank you! None of our work would have been possible without our 5,250 supporting members, institutional members and every individual person who donates to noyb. We deeply appreciate this support, especially in these difficult economic times. Your generosity and dedication enable us to continue our work and make a meaningful impact on digital rights.
Read all about our new and ongoing projects, financials and plans for 2025 in noyb’s Annual Report 2024!
