Watchdog Dixon fires warning shot across the bows of the US tech giants

BEFORE last week Mark Zuckerberg was probably vaguely familiar with the name Helen Dixon but the Irish Data Commissioner has surely now moved right to the top of the Facebook supremo’s agenda. Amid the furore and the fall out from the General Election, a very significant piece of news probably slipped under many peoples’ radars.

As it continues its onward march towards global domination, Facebook has long been planning the launch of a new dating app – a rival to Tinder – with the new service expected to generate hundreds of millions for the social media mega-corporation.

With the new app to be rolled out across Europe on Valentine’s day, all was looking rosy in Facebook’s online garden.

That was until Helen Dixon and her team stepped in to spoil Mr Zuckerberg’s Valentine’s day plans and to throw several bags of spanners into Facebook’s latest works.

In something of an embarrassing turn of events, Zuckerberg and Facebook – a company with the power to influence global elections – were forced to row back on their plan and postpone the European launch of the dating service.

Dixon’s move against Facebook and her subsequent decision to slap down the tech giant’s latest venture mark a major victory and a landmark moment for her office and her team.

With Ireland home to the European operations of tech giants including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Airbnb, Apple and Microsoft, Ms Dixon is – since the introduction of GDPR privacy laws – Europe’s de facto data enforcer.

Despite the power of her position, the operation she heads up is relatively small in scale, especially given the magnitude of what she and her team must police, and many international commentators had questioned if her office would be able to stand up to the giants of Silicon Valley.

Last week she answered that question in emphatic fashion and, it seems, it was Facebook’s apparent arrogance that spurred her office to act.

Even though the Irish Data Commissioner oversees all of Facebook’s and its competitors’ European actions – something the social media colossus should be well aware of – it didn’t bother to inform Helen Dixon’s office about its Valentine’s day app launch until February 3. That was just 10 days before the data heavy service was to roll out across the entirety of Europe.

When she learned about it, Dixon was quick to act, immediately demanding further information on the data protection implications of the new app.

Last Monday, when that information wasn’t forthcoming, she sent a team of her agents into Facebook’s Dublin offices to investigate further. Two days later, only 36 hours before the launch and based on her team’s findings, she nixed Facebook’s multi million Euro Valentine’s day project.

Safeguarding privacy is one of the great issues of our age and Helen Dixon’s actions last week show that, in Europe at least, it is in good hands. It’s comforting to know that there is indeed someone watching the watchmen.