ICO admits it's too slow dealing with complaints – so it's eying up automation to cut staff workloads

By Emma Woollacott for IT PRO
Thursday, April 3, 2025

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Data protection authorities across Europe are facing a similar rise in workloads as the number of complaints skyrockets. Research from the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights last summer concluded they've been facing an ever-mounting workload since the introduction of the GDPR, with limited staff and inadequate funding. Much of this workload comes from minor complaints.

Dr Ilia Kolochenko, CEO at ImmuniWeb and a fellow at the British Computer Society (BCS), said these issues highlight the fact that some operational aspects of the legislation “were not properly designed”.

“National DPAs are frequently understaffed and underfunded, but flooded with the ballooning number of complaints," Kolochenko commented.

This, he added, means the authorities are forced to prioritize major cases and that taking minor cases to court is often just a waste of money. This then results in organizations adopting lax approaches to compliance.

"In order to ensure a consistent, invariable and equitable investigation and remediation of data protection violations, both EU states and the UK should consider allocating additional funds to their national DPAs to be commensurable with the volume and complexity of incoming complaints," he said.

"Otherwise, toothless enforcement regimes merely invite more violations of data protection law." Read Full Article