Elon Musk’s Twitter no longer meets the criteria to be considered as his primary location in Ireland under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as per TechCrunch (opens in a new tab).
Many tech companies that have customers in Europe use GDPR one-stop-shops (OSS), which allows them to streamline their administration by “only being able to work with a lead data controller in an EU Member State.” However, Twitter seems to have broken some of the rules that allow it to use OSS.
With the massive layoffs, which affected about half of the workforce, many of the company’s key employees left, including Chief Information Security Officer Lea Kissner, Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran, and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty.
GDPR on Twitter
TechCrunch also points out that very few people will want to fill these vacant positions, as any GDPR violations are likely to fall on their shoulders, given Musk’s controversial Twitter behavior so far.
The Irish Data Protection Commission has already publicly announced that it will be questioning the company to discuss changes to Twitter’s privacy measures following Musk’s introduction as chief executive just over two weeks ago.
If it decides that Twitter no longer meets the criteria, the company will no longer be able to use Ireland as an OSS, opening it up to the individual actions of each of the 27 countries that make up the European Union, many of which are said to be more “aggressive” in responding to complaints .
In addition to a potentially lengthy battle to comply with the GDPR, Twitter’s new products allegedly circumvent the review procedures that were typical of previous management. Article on Edge (opens in a new tab) it even points out that the controversial Twitter Blue subscription was submitted for review “the night before launch.”