As Finland prepares to issue its first administrative fines under the GDPR, most likely by the beginning of May, the Data Protection Ombudsman, Reijo Aarnio, says that it is of paramount importance to achieve consistency across EU member states regarding the size of fines.

There was some delay in setting up the administrative structure to enable the issuing of fines. Anu Talus, Deputy Data Protection Ombudsman, said that during the legislative process to enact a new GDPR-style law, the Parliament insisted that the fines would be imposed by a three-person Collegium in order to avoid too much power concentrating in one person – this was seen as unconstitutional.