Mikolaj Barczentewicz on the EDPR’s Pay-or-Consent Ruling

ICLE Senior Scholar Mikolaj Barczentewicz was quoted by IAPP News on the European Data Protection Board’s ruling that so-called “pay-or-consent” models will in most cases not comply with General Data Protection Regulation. You can read the full piece here.

University of Surrey associate professor of Law Miko?aj Barczentewicz said that had the EDPB issued a stronger opinion against pay-or-consent models, it would have “contradicted what the CJEU said last July” in the Meta v. Bundeskartellamt case.

“The most important take-away is that the EDPB — however grudgingly — confirmed that ‘pay-or-consent’ models are, in principle, compatible with the GDPR,” Barczentewicz told The Privacy Advisor.

In the opinion, Barczentewicz said, “the EDPB does not provide much clarity, speaking only of what they think is or isn’t allowed for large online platforms in ‘most cases.’ This opinion will certainly be considered by national data protection authorities in their investigations of Meta, but the opinion doesn’t prejudge what will be the final decisions that, for example, the Irish DPC will take.”