Almost 60,000 Data Breaches Reported Since GDPR Implementation

More than 59,000 data breaches have been reported across Europe since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into full effect, according to law firm DLA Piper.

• By Jessica Davis
• Feb 12, 2019

More than 59,000 data breaches have been reported across Europe since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into full effect, according to law firm DLA Piper.

DLA Piper recently published its GDPR Data Breach Survey, detailing the number of reported data breaches in the eight months since the GDPR came into force. According to DLA Piper, organizations being held accountable for covering up data breaches has resulted in more open acknowledgement of security breaches.

"The GDPR completely changes the compliance risk for organizations which suffer a personal data breach due to revenue based fines and the potential for US-style group litigation claims for compensation," said Ross McKean, a partner at DLA Piper specializing in cyber and data protection.

"As we saw in the US when mandatory breach notification laws came into force, backed up by tough sanctions for not notifying, the GDPR is driving personal data breach out into the open. Our report confirms this with more than 59,000 data breaches notified across Europe in the first 8 months since the GDPR came into force,” McKean said.

According to the survey, the Netherlands, German and the United Kingdom reported the most breaches, with approximately 15,400, 12,600 and 10,600 reported breaches, respectively. The lowest numbers of reported data breaches came from Liechtenstein, Iceland and Cyprus, with 15, 25 and 35 reported breaches, respectively.

The full report can be downloaded here.