European Commission Issues New Data Protection Proposals

Much as was anticipated, the European Commission (the "Commission") announced its long-awaited proposals on what are likely to be viewed as drastic changes to data protection law in Europe. The proposals seek to make EU privacy laws fit for the 21st Century and seek to both change the system and increase penalties for breach, with fines of up to 2 percent of a corporation's annual global turnover. They also seek to introduce data breach laws similar to those which exist in most U.S. states, but possibly with a requirement to report a breach within 24 hours.

The European Union (EU) introduced the initial Data Privacy Directive (the "Directive") in 1995, although a number of European countries had their own data protection laws that pre-date the Directive. The Directive sought to give each country in the EU a template to follow for its own data protection laws. Theoretically, the law in each country must include the provisions mandated by the Directive, although