Kaleidoscopic data-related enforcement in the digital age

The interplay between competition, consumer and data protection law, when applied to data collection and processing practices, may lead to situations where several competent authorities can, independently, carry out enforcement actions against the same practice, or where an authority competent to carry out enforcement in one area of law can borrow the concepts of another area to advance its own goals. The authors call this “kaleidoscopic enforcement”. Kaleidoscopic enforcement may undermine existing coordination mechanisms within specific areas, and may lead to both the incoherent enforcement of EU rules applicable to data, and to sub-optimal enforcement. An EU level binding inter-disciplinary coordination mechanism between competition, consumer and data protection authorities is needed. Now the Commission has announced ambitious plans to enhance the coherent application of EU law in several areas, it is the perfect time to work towards creating such an enforcement mechanism.