News

The Conference of Independent Data Protection Authorities of the Federal and State Governments recently assessed the relationship between the new General Data Protection Regulation and the existing Telemedia Act (TMG). In the opinion of the data protection conference, the General Data Protection Regulation applicable from 25 May 2018 would completely replace the previous provisions of the Telemedia Act on web tracking.

Only three weeks left - then all companies must have implemented the requirements of the EU Data Protection Basic Regulation (DS-GMO). However, like many large and medium-sized companies, most startups are still a long way away, as a recent survey conducted by Bitkom Research on behalf of the Bitkom digital association shows among more than 300 startups.

New data protection regulations pose major challenges for companies this year. Many of them often lack sufficiently qualified personnel for implementation of the new rules. More than every second company (56 percent) in Germany has less than one full-time position planned for employees who mainly deal with data protection issues. This is the result of a representative company survey commissioned by the digital association Bitkom.

The U.S. Supreme Court is facing a landmark ruling: the U.S. government wants it to deeply intervene in European data protection. In February 2018, the court hears a case on whether a US authority may require companies to give them direct access to personal data stored outside the US. A decision is expected by summer 2018. "Direct access by US authorities to personal data from Europe is incompatible with European data protection law," says Bitkom CEO Dr. Bernhard Rohleder.

Only one in two companies in Germany has so far looked for help from external experts in implementing the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Only 48 percent of all companies with 20 or more employees claim to have called in specialists outside their own company. This is the result of a representative survey of more than 500 companies commissioned by the digital association Bitkom.