Being IT-Manager and Data Protection Officer? German Data Protection Authority sees this as a conflict of interest

24. November 2016

Background information:

Due to the fact that the German Federal Data Protection Act states that companies must appoint a Data Protection Officer if at least ten persons are involved in the automated processing of personal data, companies are asked to appoint an employee as an internal Data Protection Officer or appoint an external Data Protection Officer. In general, the Data Protection Officer needs to have the necessary knowledge of data protection law and must also be reliable and independent. Furthermore, a Data Protection Officer is reliability and independency in case he/she does not have other obligations which could lead to a conflict of interest.

What happened?

A German Data Protection Authority just fined a company as it appointed an internal Data Protection Officer who was also the IT-Manager. The Data Protection Authority argued that the position of an IT-Manager is incompatible with the position of the Data Protection Officer due to the fact that the Data Protection Officer would be required to monitor himself/herself. The Data Protection Authority explained that such self-monitoring is contradictory to the required independency that is necessary.

This is a very important statement as the upcoming GDPR requires the appointment of a Data Protection Officer as well and states further that it is not allowed that any further tasks and oblgations of the Data Protection Officer result in a conflict of interests – Having in mind that a violation of this may result in fines of up to 10.000.000 EUR or up to 2 % of the total worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher.