Data Protection Reform

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After four years of protracted discussions and negotiations, the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) gained final approval from the European Parliament 14 April. It will enter into force 20 days after publication in the Official Journal of the European Union (expected imminently), and it comes into force two years after that date – i.e., mid-2018.

The GDPR replaces the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (the “Directive”) and the legislation enacted by Member States to implement it. As a regulation, the GDPR will be directly applicable in all Member States; indeed, one of its core aims is to harmonise legal requirements across the EU, eliminating many of the inconsistencies that developed under the Directive.

The GDPR constitutes the single biggest change to EU data protection rules for 20 years and is considerably more comprehensive and onerous than the regime it replaces. We set out below some of the most significant changes.
Continue Reading The Data Protection Directive Is Dead! Long Live the General Data Protection Regulation!

This post was written by Cynthia O’Donoghue.

In March, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of implementing the draft Data Protection Regulation, making its commitment to reforming the European regime irreversible. In order to become law, the Regulation must now be negotiated and adopted by the Council of Ministers.

Discussions around reform…

The UK Data Protection Watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), has launched a public consultation on their future governance strategy, the ‘2020 Vision for Information Rights’. The ICO is being challenged by significant changes in the regulatory landscape triggered by imminent reform of EU data protection law. Simultaneously, the UK regulator is facing cutbacks in…

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) has published an explanation of the process and timeline of the proposed EU data protection reform and its involvement in the on-going negotiations.

According to the ICO, the proposed EU data protection reforms could “be one of the biggest changes to data protection that the (UK) has ever seen.”…