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What is your duty to co-operate with your regulator?
Zoe Beels
Can employers still monitor employees’ communications in light of Barbulescu v Romania? Don’t panic, they can. But, the decision in Barbulescu v Romania from the appeal chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) shows that, in future, they must apply their mind in a much more rigorous way to how they go about it.
The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) amounts to a significant overhaul of existing data protection regulation and is designed to be ‘technology neutral’. However, how the GDPR will cope with emerging block chain technology and a move towards the decentralisation of data storage remains to be seen.
In just over a year (25 May 2018), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (the “Regulation”) will replace the Data Protection Act 1998 (“the DPA”) and come into force in the UK. This will be just under a year before Brexit. In any event, the Regulation would still apply to all companies who intend to do business with the EU and handle the personal information of European citizens.
The General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR) will come into force on 25 May 2018. This might feel like a long time away on a cold winter’s morning, but ensuring your business is ready to comply by that date is unlikely to be a “quick fix”. The GDPR is complex and, as you will see from our blog series, broad ranging in its scope. In this blog, I’ve summarised what I believe will be the 8 key employment related issues for businesses as they ready themselves for the changes to the data protection regime, and the key immediate action points to consider.
“We’re all going to have to change how we think about data protection”, the Information Commissioner noted at a lecture for the Institute of Chartered Accountants last week (full text here). Those that are familiar with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will know that she is absolutely right about this. Brexit is not going to “intervene” in that respect - the GDPR will have come into force before the UK leaves the EU. In any event, for those that want to do business in the EU (for example, by offering goods or services to individuals in the EU), they will need to comply.
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