More than 57,000 complaints lodged so far in Europe on potential GDPR breaches

Europe’s sweeping new privacy rules are fueling an explosion in complaints by individuals, reports of data breaches by companies, and greater awareness among Europeans about data protection.

But six months after coming online, research suggests the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has also dampened investment in startups on the EU tech scene. Big companies like Google and Facebook are more dominant than ever in their markets, and no Silicon Valley giant has yet felt the sting of eye-watering financial penalties linked to the rules as regulators struggle to keep up with an increased workload.

POLITICO reports that “More than 57,000 complaints have been lodged with national data protection watchdogs around the bloc over potential data misuse and more than 27,000 organizations have reported data breaches under the rules’ 72-hour time limits. National watchdogs are conducting dozens of investigations, including into the biggest U.S.-based tech firms.”

An academic research quoted by Politico says that Google, Amazon and Facebook have increased their market share in online advertising while smaller players, struggling to keep up with compliance costs, have seen their slice of the pie shrink dramatically, according to statistics from industry watchers. Privacy-minded startups, however, say they are seeing an uptick in investor interest. It also adds that while overall investment into the European tech ecosystem is likely to beat the $19.1 billion raised last year, according to Dealroom, a data provider, the amount of money the average EU startup pocketed per week was down $3.4 million on average in almost all EU countries, an aggregate 40-percent decline compared to before the rules came into force, according to academic research.

The broad effect of the rules on smaller players is that investors are often looking outside the 28-member bloc to place bets on fledgling companies, according to Liad Wagman, an associate professor of economics at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, who co-authored a study on the impact of GDPR.