EU Reaches Agreement On Significant New Privacy Law

Following almost four years of debate, on December 15 the European Commission, the Parliament, and the Council agreed on the text of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This agreement was quickly followed by the approval of the text, on December 16, by the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee.

The Regulation seeks to unify somewhat fragmented existing data protection rules in the European Union, increase certainty in their application, account for advances in technology and strengthen individuals' control over their personal data. However, the GDPR will still allow individual Member States some room to manoeuvre, but it will be some time before we see how this works in practice. The Commission expects that the final text will be formally adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union in early 2016; the GDPR will come into force two years after that without requiring any additional