EU cross-regime enforcement, redundancy and interdependence. Addressing overlap of enforcement structures in the digital sphere after Meta.

Abstract

The post-GDPR EU’s legal acts regulating digital technologies have increased the already significant number of enforcement authorities whose competence overlaps with data protection authorities (DPAs). The CJEU judgement in the Meta case is a step forward in managing this phenomenon by allowing other authorities to deal with data protection matters incidentally in close cooperation with DPAs. Such overlap might be seen from the public law postulate of the precise delimitation of authorities’ competence or through a concept of extended accountability explored by Colin Scott. This paper examines the second concept, demonstrating the potential advantages of enforcement structures’ fuzziness, redundancy and interdependence and sketching a path forward for cross-regime cooperation.