One of the most important EU legislative initiatives in recent years, and a landmark in privacy regulation worldwide, the GDPR is set to replace the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC) of 1995. After the Council of Ministers accelerated the voting timetable for GDPR passage and the Parliament approved the GDPR in an up-or-down vote, all eyes were on the GDPR’s publication to begin setting compliance timetables.
Today, the final and as-approved version of the GDPR was published in the EU’s Official Journal. The Official Journal version of the GDPR can be downloaded here.
With that, the GDPR’s compliance deadlines have officially been set in motion. The GDPR will enter into force final twenty days from its publication in today’s Official Journal. On that date, the GDPR’s two-year period for bringing businesses into compliance will begin to run. Businesses can expect the GDPR to become the law of the land applying throughout all EU member states beginning on May 25, 2018.
