The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has filed a complaint against the Data Protection Commission (DPC) for failing to thoroughly investigate a complaint made about Google and IAB Europe’s procession of personal data. The High Court challenge has been initiated by Dr. Johnny Ryan, a senior fellow at ICCL, regarding the DPC’s alleged failure to investigate his 2018 complaint about the two companies.

The complaint is on the operation of a system called “Real Time Bidding” (RTB), which enables the targeting of individual data subjects for online advertising based on their personal data and is allegedly used by Google and the IAB. The failure to examine the situation, according to the complaint, is in violation of both the Data Protection Act 2018 and the GDPR, the EU’s privacy and data protection regulations. The complaint highlighted concerns, including that the RTB systems used by the two firms involve the unauthorized, and potentially unlimited disclosure and processing of personal data.

The DPC launched an investigation into RTB in May 2019 as a result of its own infringement, according to the High Court, and there was substantial contact between Ryan and the DPC over the matter. Ryan, on the other hand, alleges that the commission did not properly or adequately investigate his complaint, and has filed judicial review proceedings against the DPC in the High Court.

Ryan further commented that:

The DPC was created to protect us against the illegal collection and use of intimate data about us. But it has failed to act in this landmark case, despite the passage of three and a half years and having detailed evidence of Google’s massive and ongoing data breach.

The matter was adjourned to a date in May, as reported by The Irish Times. Ryan, in  June 2021, has also brought a legal action specifically targeting technology giants including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon, as well as cellphone service providers, it aims more broadly to challenge online advertising and RTB.