GDPR, Part I: History Of European Data Protection Law

In today's global marketplace, organizations must comply with an increasingly complicated set of international laws and regulations. This article is the first in a seven-part series which seeks to explain, in plain English, the critical compliance requirements of the European Union's forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While this series will focus on a number of the most significant "need to know" features of the GDPR, future editions of this series will also compare how the GDPR will affect commerce among and between three of the world's most significant markets: the United States, the European Union, and China.

Part 1: A brief history of European data protection law and why it's important to understanding the GDPR