The New EU Regulation On General Data Protection 2016/679 ("GDPR")

A. Introduction

Globalization has rapidly and radically increased the ease in which data may be collected, stored and transmitted. The current Directive (95/46/EC) is out dated and does not correspond to today's needs. Various reasons has led to the increased need for a united legal framework in relation to the protection of personal data, including the rapid technological developments, the excessive use of the internet, the use of internet banking, social media and more importantly the ease in which personal data are now made publicly available.

The new regulation on general data protection, 2016/679 (the "GDPR") has been adopted by the European Parliament in April 2016 and will come in full force and directly applicable to all Member States on the 25th of May 2018. GDPR will abolish any other legislation and aims to set a unified legal framework in order to ensure adequate protection of physical persons in relation to the processing of their personal data, in