Privacy & Information Security Law Blog: CNIL Adopts Referentials On DPO Certification

On October 11, 2018, the French data protection authority (the "CNIL") announced that it adopted two referentials (i.e., guidelines) on the certification of the data protection officer ("DPO"). View the announcement (in French). As a practical matter, both referentials are intended to apply to DPOs located in France or who speak French. The referentials include:

• a certification referential that sets forth the conditions regarding the admissibility of DPO applications, and lists 17 qualifications that the DPO must have in order to be certified as a DPO by a certification body approved by the CNIL; and
• an accreditation referential that outlines the criteria organizations must satisfy in order to be accredited by the CNIL as certification bodies.