GDPR is now six months old – it’s time to take an assessment of the regulation’s impact so far. At first blush it would appear very little has changed. There are no well-publicized actions being taken against offenders. No large fines levied. So does this mean its yet another regulation that will be ignored? Actually nothing could be farther from the truth.

The day GDPR came into law complaints were filed by data subjects against Facebook and Google. Complaints – that does not sound like action by regulators, in fact its not – its action taken by lawyers. GDPR is a much-evolved form of European regulation allowing data subjects to file suits against data collectors whom they believe are violating their rights. This battle is going to be fought in 28 EU countries courts much sooner than in their Data Protection commissioners ministries who enforce the law and handout fines for violations.