Belgium publishes new data protection law

On September 5 2018, the new data protection law (“Law of 30 July”) was published in the Belgian Official Gazette (“Belgisch Staatsblad”) and entered into force with this publication.

After the “Law of 3 December 2017”, which replaced the Belgian Privacy Commission with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (“Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit”), the Law of 30 July is the second law that implements the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The laws regulate various essential areas of data protection. New regulations are for instance, the reducing of the age of consent from 16 (as regulated in GDPR) to 13 years old for information society services or the requirement to list persons who have access to genetic, biometric and health-related data. Therewith, Belgium has also made use of the possibility to deviate from the GDPR in different scopes.

With the law of 30 July, Belgium has thus completed the incorporation of the GDPR into national law. The Law is available in French and Dutch.