The Eu Data Protection Reform - Analysis Of The Newly Proposed Provisions And The Impact On The Romanian Data Protection Authority

In the context of today’s technological advancements, the online environment poses a new set of privacy and data protection challenges, thus making users more vulnerable in the virtual space. With the aim of ensuring sufficient safeguards and minimizing privacy risks, EUlegislators are trying to keep up to date with the speed of developments and reform the 17-years old data protection legal framework. In this sense, the European Commission recently proposed a data protection Regulation1 which would have direct effect upon the national legal framework of EU Member States. Consequently, this would imply a substantial effort on behalf of each of the 27 countries to realign their data protection laws with the new European standards and make sure that their National Data Protection Authorities (NDPRs) are functioning in compliance with the Draft Regulation. Having in mind the possible adoption of this legislative piece, the thrust of this paper relates to the changes the proposed Regulation would bring to the existing national laws on data protection and the impact the draft Regulation would have on the Romanian Data Protection Authority (RDPA).