The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) controls how all personal data on EU citizens is collected and processed. The legislation covers various privacy aspects, from cookies to monitoring employees in the workplace.

It doesn’t matter if a company is based outside the EU – if it gathers data from users inside the EU, it must adhere to GDPR. Those who fail to comply with GDPR requirements receive hefty fines.

An analysis by Atlas VPN reveals that GDPR fines hit a total of €97.29 million in the first half of 2022, an increase of 92% over H1 2021.

The data for the analysis was extracted from Enforcementtracker, with not all penalties having been made public.

According to the analysis, companies and individuals were charged a total of €50.6 million in GDPR penalties in H1 2021. On the other hand, legal cases slightly decreased from 215 in 2021 to 205 in 2022.

In other words, even though the number of GDPR violations slightly decreased in 2022, the severity of those violations was considerably worse.

The most noticeable difference between 2021 and 2022 can be seen in February, where the total amount penalised differs by nearly €28 million.

On the other hand, there is a distinctive trend throughout both years –  around 70% of fines happen throughout the first quarter.

A total of 412 penalties were issued last year, with companies like Amazon and WhatsApp paying the most significant penalties for violating GDPR laws.

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Since 2018, when the EU implemented the GDPR law, there’s been steady increases each year in the total penalties issued, with a total of €436,000 in its inaugural year. In 2019, the sum of total fines increased significantly to €72 million.

In 2020, the total value of fines administered reached over €171m by the end of the year. However, 2021 blew out past years by a significant margin, accumulating more than €1 billion in GDPR fines, a 521% increase compared to last year.

July 2021 saw Amazon Europe Core S.a.r.l incur the highest fine of €746m. Later on, in September, the EU fined WhatsApp Ireland Ltd. €225m.

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