Greek Parliament passes bill to adopt GDPR into National Law

On Monday, August 26th, the Greek Parliament passed a bill that will incorporate the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) into national law. Originally, the adaptation of the EU regulation was supposed to take place until May 06, 2018. Greece failed to comply with the deadline.

The, now, fast-paced implementation of the regulation may have come as a result of the referral of Greece and Spain by the European Commission (EC) to the European Court of Justice on July 25th. Since they had failed to adopt the GDPR into national law up until then, Greece could have faced a fine of €5,287.50 for every day passed since May 06, in addition to a stiff fine of €1.3 million. In its statement, the EC declared that “the lack of transposition by Spain and Greece creates a different level of protection of peoples’ rights and freedoms, and hampers data exchanges between Greece and Spain on one side and other Member States, who transposed the Directive, on the other side”.

The EU countries are allowed to adopt certain derogations, exeptions and specifications under the GDPR. Greece has done so, in the approved bill, with adjusted provisions in regards to the age of consent, the process of appointing a Data Protection Officer, sensitive data processing, data repurposing, data deletion, certifications and criminal sanctions.

The legislation was approved by New Democracy, the main opposition SYRIZA, the center-left Movement for Change and leftist MeRA25, with an overwhelming majority. The GDPR has already been in effect since May 25th, 2018, with its main aim being to offer more control to individuals over their personal data that they provide to companies and services.