Three Years Of Data Protection In Turkey

Three years have passed since the enaction of Turkey's long-awaited data protection legislation, the Law on Protection of Personal Data numbered 6698 ("DP Law"), on 7 April 2016. Since then the, DP Law and in particular the risk of being imposed with the monetary sanctions included therein are a hanging sword over the head of data controllers in Turkey. And yet the sword has gone even sharper, since the beginning of 2017, as of which, the Turkish Personal Data Protection Authority ("Authority"), established by the DP Law, became active with the inauguration of the members of its Personal Data Protection Board ("Board").

The responsibility of the Board, without a doubt is a heavy one. They have no established local data protection practice to rely on and they are expected to lay the foundations of a data protection culture in a country which met with the concept just recently. Be that as it may, the previous three years have verified that the Board is up for that