After several years of discussion the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of April 27, 2016 was published in the Official Journal of the European Union, was adopted on May 24, 2016 and will apply as of May 25, 2018. The current Data Protection Directive will then be repealed. It dates back to the “stone age” of data protection, that is to say to a time where companies such as Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, Instagram and cloud-computing didn’t exist. Data protection law had to be modernised and adapted to match these developments.
The aim of the new General Data Protection Regulation is, on the one hand, to strengthen the fundamental rights of individuals, in particular to protect personal data within the EU, and on the other hand to provide for the free movement of data between member states.
In a guest comment for the Tyrolean edition of the “Wirtschaftsblatt”, lawyer Georg Huber explained what the EU General Data Protection Regulation means for companies and what they have to expect.
