Commission says no power to take action on Ireland’s tech regulator appointment

BRUSSELS — The European Commission said it is “not empowered to take action” amid concerns about the appointment of a former tech lobbyist to Ireland’s privacy regulator.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties — a nonprofit transparency campaign group — on Tuesday filed a complaint calling on the Commission to launch an inquiry into how Niamh Sweeney was appointed to co-lead the Irish Data Protection Commission.

Citing reporting from POLITICO, the complaint alleges the appointment process “lacked procedural safeguards against conflicts of interest and political interference.”

It’s the first formal challenge to the decision after Sweeney took up her role as one of three chief regulators at Ireland’s top data regulator this month. Her prior experience as a lobbyist for Facebook and WhatsApp reignited concerns that the regulator is too close to Big Tech.

In response to the complaint, Commission spokesperson Guillaume Mercier said that “it is for the member states to appoint members to their respective data protection authorities.”

The Commission “is not involved in this process and is not empowered to take action with respect to those appointments,” Mercier told a daily press briefing Tuesday.

He emphasized that countries do need to respect requirements set out in EU law — that the appointment process must be “transparent,” and that those appointed should “have the qualifications, the experience, the skills, in particular in the protection of personal data, required to perform their duties and to exercise their powers.”

The complaint asked the Commission to look into the appointment as part of its duties to oversee the application of EU law, claiming these responsibilities had not been met by Ireland.

Sweeney was appointed by the Irish government on the advice of the Public Appointments Service, the authority that provides recruitment services for public jobs, which has previously expressed its full confidence in the process.