New Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (hereinafter the Regulation) shall come into force on May 25th 2018.

The current legislation in the form of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data has been implemented inconsistently by individual Member States. As a result, there is an unclear fragmentation of personal data protection rules consisting in total of 28 different data protection laws, each of which has its own specificities, and some even contradict each other. Fragile legislation in the area of personal data protection has thus created an obstacle for entrepreneurs to use actively all available technological means and expand to the markets of other Member States and, last but not least, has seriously undermined the confidence of the citizens of the European Union in strict protection of their personal data.

The long-awaited reform of the Personal Data Protection system in the form of the adopted Regulation has a clearly defined objective – to set up a uniform and directly applicable system of rules on the protection of personal data across the whole European Union, thus to accompany Europe on the road to the digital age that it has already embarked upon.

Harmonized legislation introduces, in addition to a number of positive changes in the form of easier access to foreign markets, also several new, obligations for entrepreneurs that are not known yet. An unusually strict system of high sanctions, mandatory reporting of security incidents, the right to be forgotten and the right to data portability are just some of the news that will undoubtedly transform the European business environment.

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