Romania’s EU Presidency concludes first file: personal data protection

Romania’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union has concluded, on Wednesday, the first legislative dossier in reference to protection of personal data. Document forbids political parties to use personal data collected for commercial purposes, Romanian Minister-Delegate for European Affairs, George Ciamba, said on Wednesday in Strasbourg.

Minister-Delegate George Ciamba: We are talking about a change to a regulation aimed at funding political parties and foundations, but in fact it aims protection of personal data, in the sense that a political party is not allowed to request an operator a certain type of action that implies that the latter provides data which is not subject to the protection provided by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). There have been political forces, foundations that have used the services of a company, and had this approach. There are some obligations in this directive, including that of notifying the authorities in charge with data protection, and of course the electoral authorities, if such phenomena are observed.

File is now to go to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER), and then be adopted as a point A on the agenda in the first format of the EU Council.

Minister-Delegate for European Affairs also said that this European directive will be implemented immediately, during the European Parliament elections in May.

Source:RRA.Translated by Miruna Matei