Our Firm is providing legal services to the office of the Commissioner for the Protection of Personal Data and is acting as legal advisor for various matters relating to the office of the Commissioner. We are very pleased for this as it marks the beginning of a very important co-operation.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is Europe’s landmark regulation regarding the safeguarding of individual’s personal data in the EU and the EEA and it came into force in May 2018. GDPR aims at strengthening the protection of individual privacy rights by addressing new challenges that are brought through technological advances and globalization and by aligning data protection with those challenges. Through the use of a more coherent framework, stricter enforcement regimes and the imposition of severe fines, the EU aims at safeguarding the privacy rights of individuals.
EU Member States have also adopted a strict approach to GDPR. Since the Regulation’s enforcement, large fines have been imposed on companies with the largest one so far being a 746,000,000 euros handed out to Amazon by the Luxembourg’s data protection authority. Cyprus has, also, imposed fines of considerable amounts with the largest amounting to euro 925,000 which was imposed on WS WiSpear Systems Ltd in November 2021 for non-compliance with general data processing principles (Art. 5(1)(a)).
Our exposure to the field through our co-operation with the office of the Commissioner of Data Protection enables us to gain considerable expertise in the GDPR field. Our professionals possess in-depth knowledge on the matter and are in the best position possible to extensively advise regarding any GDPR related matter.