Helen Dixon has confirmed that she will leave her role as the State’s Data Protection Commissioner in early 2024 after a decade in the job.
Ms Dixon, who was in the final year of her second term at the helm of the most influential data regulator in the European Union, was due to vacate the position next year after being reappointed in 2019.
In a statement published on LinkedIn, Ms Dixon confirmed February 19th, 2024 as her departure date.
“I look back with great satisfaction at what the Data Protection Commission (the DPC) has achieved over the last 9 and a half years,” she said. “I have had the opportunity to transform the DPC from a small regionally-based office of 27 staff into an independent regulatory body today with over 215 committed experts, headquartered in Dublin, and internationally recognised for the quality of its staff and work.”
During her tenure, Ms Dixon oversaw the Irish rollout of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a process that she said on Wednesday remains “a work in progress”.
She said: “As the larger-scale enforcement cases now conclude, we see in Ireland and beyond, that these decisions are often subject to judicial challenge. It will take a further number of years to bottom-out definitive interpretations of applications of this principles-based law but the groundwork is now well laid.”
