On 15 April 2019, the ICO opened a public consultation on a draft code of practice titled Age Appropriate Design (the “Code”).  The Code will remain open for public consultation until 31 May 2019.

The consultation document is described as a “code of practice for online services likely to be accessed by children.”  However, its potential impact is in fact wider, and is perhaps better described as applying to all online services that are not demonstrably unlikely to be accessed by children, which it controversially defines as individuals under 18.  For this reason, the Code in its current form will have implications for almost all providers and users of online services.

On January 21,2019 the French data protection authority (the CNIL) imposed a major fine on the U.S. Google entity, Google LLC.  It follows two complaints filed as soon as the GDPR came into force by two consumer rights associations, None of Your Business and La Quadrature du Net.

We focus here on four key aspects of the decision: (a) why the Irish Data Protection Commission (Irish DPC) did not take the case; (b) the consent mechanism failings; (c) the privacy policy failings; and (d) the amount of the fine.