New EU General Data Protection Regulation Passes The Finish Line

After nearly five years of preparation and intense negotiations, the EU General Data Protection Regulation was formally adopted by the European Parliament on 14 April 2016. A new and final text of the regulation was published a week earlier. The regulation introduces new European data protection rules that directly apply in all EU member states. It strengthens existing obligations to modernise the current data protection framework. The regulation will also apply to organisations not established in the EU if they process personal data of data subjects in the EU in relation to offering them goods or services to those subjects or monitoring their behaviour.

It is key for companies to immediately begin reviewing their operations that involve collecting and processing personal data, and to implement the new data protection requirements before the regulation becomes applicable in spring 2018. The new enforcement powers of national data protection authorities and the