The Belgian data protection authority has thrown in the towel after nearly four hundred complaints. You will no longer be treated.

The backlog of files at the Belgian data protection authority is so great that it has dismissed 389 complaints without further action. That explains the privacy setting in a letter on its website.

Good will, few resources

The (main) reason given is the workload caused by extensive procedures. Last year, for example, the GBA received 604 complaints, but the Dispute Chamber actually decided in only 189 cases. The result is an ever-growing file jam.

For this reason, it was decided not to take any further action in the 389 cases mentioned above. The motivation behind this is that they are complaints that have not been dealt with for more than a year or that “do not have a particularly high priority or social relevance‘.

The Trial Chamber informed every complainant about this in the interests of transparency. In the published letter, anyone can read the standard text with which each complainant was informed. People still have the opportunity to appeal this decision. Another option is to file a new complaint.

In addition, the GBA defends the decision on the grounds that the institution does not have to have sufficient resources. She emphasizes that this restriction leads to a strict chance assessment for individual cases with a long duration. This is to enable the trial chamber to make decisions on matters affecting a larger group of people.

Good intentions

In the letter, the Dispute Chamber undertakes to work on measures to prevent future file backlogs:

• Further development of the legal regulation
• General prevention (as does the entire GBA)
• Promote dispute resolution through mediation whenever possible

In addition, the Dispute Chamber expresses its intention to tighten the assessment of successor decisions earlier in the process in the future. The focal points of the GBA will play an important role in this.

Some complaints to the GBA are more obvious than others. An Austrian lawsuit is currently pending against a Proximus subsidiary and last year NMBS received a large fine for violating the GDPR.