Outgoing Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon set to move to ComReg

Helen Dixon is to move to communications regulator ComReg after she leaves the role of Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) next year.

Ms Dixon will join ComReg as a commissioner early next year, Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan said in a statement, confirming an earlier report by The Irish Times.

ComReg is usually led by three commissioners. There are two in place at present, Garrett Blaney and Robert Mourik.

“Ms Dixon will bring considerable national and international experience to this role, particularly in an evolving regulatory and legal framework where telecoms and postal sectors have seen rapidly accelerated digitalisation,” Mr Ryan said. “This will further strengthen the leadership required to stay abreast of major developments in the digital sector, ensure an appropriate regulatory response to challenges and opportunities, and proactively engage with consumers,” he added.

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Her appointment comes after an open competition run by the Public Appointments Service. The commissioners already in place earned a total pay package of €178,000 each in the year to the end of June 2022, according to the most recent ComReg annual report.

By moving to the communications regulator, Ms Dixon’s will switch her focus from the likes of Facebook owner Meta, Microsoft and TikTok, to the likes of Three, Eir and Sky Ireland.

She will move after nearly a decade as Data Protection Commissioner, which made her one of the most important regulators of big tech firms in the world.

“Two-thirds of the fines issued across Europe last year, including the EU, EEA and UK, were issued by the DPC on foot of detailed and comprehensive investigations,” Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, who is the ultimate overseer of the DPC, said in a separate statement. “This underlines both the DPC’s significant role and positive record of effective and robust data regulation.”

Ms Dixon flagged her departure from the DPC on Wednesday.

As the head of the DPC, Ms Dixon and her office faced stiff criticism and legal challenges from data privacy campaigners over its speed of decision-making and enforcement of GDPR rules against big tech companies.

In that time, however, the commission has levied big fines against many of them. The DPC has been responsible for four of the five largest penalties handed out under GDPR across the EU since its adoption in 2018, including the decision in May to penalise Meta and impose €1.2 billion fine in relation to the transfer of European user data to the United States.

Most recently, in September her office fined TikTok €345 million for violating children’s privacy on its video-sharing app, after finding adults could enable direct messages for certain teenagers with whom they had no family connection.

The case against the Chinese-owned tech giant also showed how TikTok’s “family pairing” feature could link children’s accounts to “unverified” adults who were not their parents or guardians. The High Court gave TikTok permission last month to challenge the fine”..