Two new data protection commissioners appointed

The Cabinet has signed off on the appointment of two new commissioners for the Data Protection Commission (DPC).

Dr Des Hogan will take up his role as a commissioner next week and he will also serve as the organisation’s chairman for three years.

An assistant chief solicitor in the Office of the Chief State Solicitor since 2015, he previously held a number of senior positions in the Irish Human Rights Commission.

Earlier in his career, he worked for Amnesty International in Australia and the UK.

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Dale Sutherland joined the DPC in 2016 as a deputy commissioner and played “a central role” in building up its capacity as a global regulator.

The current Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon announced her impending departure late last year.

She is joining communications regulator ComReg as a commissioner.

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee received Government approval for the appointment of the two new commissioners for data protection following a recommendation by the Public Appointments Service (PAS).

While Mr Hogan will chair the DPC for three years, the intention is that the position will rotate among commissioners.

This follows a Government decision in July 2022 that there be three commissioners.

The PAS will shortly commence another competition to recruit a third commissioner.

The DPC has seen a massive increase in its workload in recent years as a watchdog for GDPR legislation given that many of the world’s largest social media companies have European headquarters in Dublin.

Two-thirds of the fines issued across Europe last year were issued by the DPC on foot of its investigations.

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