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May 28, 2019 - Technology

Europe's privacy law celebrates its first birthday

Ina Fried
Gif of macbook with a blinders over it

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

It's been a year since Europe's strict new privacy law, known as GDPR, went into effect.

What's happening: Ireland, which is tasked with investigating potential violations by most of the U.S. tech giants, has launched 19 cross-border probes, including 11 against Facebook, according to the BBC.

  • Twitter, LinkedIn and Google also face probes, per the BBC report.
  • Here are some of the other actions taken by various European regulators.

Why it matters: Despite fears GDPR's rules would be either too onerous or not go far enough, the law is emerging as a model for privacy legislation elsewhere, including in the U.S.

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