On 4 March 2024, the Turkish Parliament passed a new regulation which amends several regulations including the Law on the Protection of Personal Data No. 6698 ("LPPD"). This amendment is welcomed by the market as harmonisation of LPPD with the EU General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") has long been expected.
Previously, the LPPD had a stricter approach than the GDPR in various respects, especially on the transfer of data abroad. The strict regulations on the transfer of personal data abroad negatively affected the investments of foreign cloud service providers (Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, etc.) in Turkey for many years.
The changes also introduced new sets of rules for processing conditions of special categories of personal data and the transfer of personal data abroad. Also, while previously the criminal courts had jurisdiction to resolve objections to the decisions of the Personal Data Protection Board (“Board”), that jurisdiction has now been transferred to the administrative courts, which are expected to be more effective.
Some other main changes to the LPPD are;
- (i) Rules of processing special categories of personal data
- (ii) New terms and conditions for the transfer of personal data abroad (explicit consent has been made an exception to the transfer of personal data abroad.)
- (iii) Liability of data processors for administrative fines
The new regulation introduced a new misdemeanour which requires data controllers to give notice to the Board, about standard contracts entered into with regard to transfer of personal data within 5 working days. Failure to do so may result in an administrative fine being imposed by the Board of up to EUR 30,000.
With these significant changes, data controllers and data processors are required to harmonise their data processing procedures with the new regulation, and failure to comply with the changes may result in fines reaching up to EUR 279.000.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to have more detailed information on the significant changes to the LPPD or have any other queries.
