US tech giants risk hefty fines, Irish privacy chief warns

Helen Dixon, data protection commissioner at the Irish Data Protection Commission, speaks at the Sooner Than You Think London tech conference in London, U.K., on Wednesday, June 12, 2019. The two-day event features tech executives from PayPal, Slack, Mozilla, Uber, Google and others as well as officials such as Ireland’s privacy watchdog. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Facebook Inc, Google and Apple Inc are all at risk of hefty fines if the European data protection regulator probing them finds they violated European Union privacy rules. 

Helen Dixon, Ireland’s data protection commissioner, said she has about 20 investigations open into big technology companies, including Twitter Inc and Facebook’s WhatsApp and Instagram platforms.