Notable Developments In Privacy, Technology And IP

GDPR and the Irish Data Protection Bill

During the last 12 months, businesses had to focus heavily on their readiness for the incoming European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In May 2017, the Irish Government published the General Scheme of the Data Protection Bill 2017. This provided some insight into the Irish Government's legislative intent and approach towards those provisions of the GDPR where Member States are afforded a margin of flexibility.

Some of the most notable proposals in the Scheme centre on reforming the office and powers of the Data Protection Commissioner. The Government's enhancement of the Commission's powers comes ahead of the additional GDPR workload coinciding with  the introduction of the 'one-stop-shop' mechanism and the new resource-intensive elements of investigation. The Data Protection Commissioner is to be replaced by a new entity, the "Data Protection Commission" (Commission). The entity will comprise up to