The European General Data Protection Regulation In The Dutch Workplace

Introduction

The European General Data Protection Regulation (the 'Regulation') will take effect on 25 May 2018. The Regulation will replace the current European Data Protection Directive of 1995. The Dutch Data Protection Act (locally known as 'Wbp') will expire by the effective date of the Regulation. The Regulation will be directly applicable in all the EU Member States, without the need for conversion into national legislation. These developments bound to have an impact on labour law practices in the Netherlands. Employers process personal data of their employees for numerous reasons. Think of: the usual data processing for staff administration purposes, data processing for sickness absence counselling, and data processing in relation to employee attendance at work.