By Luis Rijo
Publication Date: 2026-09-22 06:46:00
Seven years and ten months separate the complaint from the penalty. On November 27, 2018, consumer organisations in seven countries filed coordinated grievances about the way Google collected location data on Android phones. On September 21, 2026, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined Google Ireland Limited €403 million and gave the company six months to change the processing. In the interval, the products at issue were redesigned, the legal entity responsible for European users changed hands, a dozen adjacent cases were litigated in the United States, and the European Union began rewriting the statute under which the fine was issued.
That last point is what gives Monday its shape. Enforcement of the 2018 rulebook arrived on the same day that noyb published a Council of the European Union working text proposing to permit personal data processing for artificial intelligence training on a legitimate interest basis, with the Commission’s proposed unconditional right to…
