EU Officials (Finally) Agree On New Data Protection Regulation

After nearly four years of negotiation and wrangling, European Officials announced yesterday that they had finally reached agreement on the language for the EU's new General Data Protection Regulation ("Regulation), which will replace the aging 1995 Data Protection Directive ("Directive").

In many ways, the announcement is welcome news as it will harmonize what had become a patchwork of laws within the EU, because member states were free to enact their own data protection laws that were based on the Directive. Although the final text of the Regulation has not been officially released yet, EU officials have already provided some indications of what it contains in press releases.

The final text of the Regulation still needs to be put to a vote by the EU Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee, and if approved, by the entire Parliament in January of 2016. If the Regulation is approved in early 2016 as expected, the regulation will come into force in 2018, giving