On 15th March in British Embassy in Warsaw, the meeting of the British Polish Chamber of Commerce’s working group titled “Changes are coming – data protection revisited – the planned EU regulation from the perspective of the regulator and the practitioner” was held. SSW Law Firm was the co-organizer of this event in which almost one hundred representatives from leading Polish and foreign companies took part.
The prospective revolutionary changes in data protection, that will be directly applicable across the EU without a necessity to implement them in the national legislation, has been presented by Ms. Joanna Tomaszewska – PhD, attorney at law, partner responsible for the data protection practice in Spaczyński, Szczepaniak Law Firm sp.k and Mr. Piotr Drobek – Deputy of the Director of the Department of Social Education and International Cooperation of the Office of the General Inspector for Personal Data Protection.
Ms. Joanna Tomaszewska has presented the most significant changes introduced by the planned EU regulation from the perspective of their influence on functioning of entrepreneurs. Ms. Tomaszewska noticed that the whole data protection philosophy is going to change – from the regulatory/registry approach to the approach based on risk assessment, where a given entity will be obliged to apply the regulation using available instruments, mechanisms and codes of good practice.
The Director Piotr Drobek, in his speech, pointed out that although the regulation implements new obligations and standards, it is more liberal and less case-based than the current Polish act on data protection. He also noticed that it will be necessary to revise other Polish legal acts related to data protection, because in case of conflicts between provisions of the EU regulation and provisions of national legislation, the EU regulation will prevail.
To sum up, both speakers agreed that despite the fact that the new EU regulation will probably enter into force in Spring 2018, the companies should take necessary steps (including implementation of the information management mechanisms) soon, in order to be prepared for the new legal framework. Thanks to that, entrepreneurs may avoid a risk of imposing severe financial penalties for failing to comply with provisions of the EU regulation.
We invite you to watch the video of this event:
