The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) will be applicable as of May 25, 2018. The (high) level of penalties under the GDPR will become one of the core issues for companies. Indeed the GDPR is based on the European fundamental rights to privacy and data protection and could potentially apply outside the European Union.
In order to reassure companies and as a first step, the French Data Protection Authority (DPA), the CNIL, assured that the application of the GDPR in France will be flexible. This declaration was made on its website this Monday, February 19, 2018. The CNIL also assured companies that it will provide some assistance to companies in the first months after the entry into application of the GDPR. In this way, an accompanying information guide will be published by the CNIL (co-edited with the French public investment bank) to help companies.
Finally, the CNIL assured companies that it will not sanction by any means each company that does not comply with the GDPR. The approach will be pragmatic with a distinction between the existing fundamental principles (existing under the current law) and the new requirements that need adjustments within companies.
The existing principles for which there will be no flexibility or tolerance are, for example, the obligation to process in a lawful, fair and transparent manner, the obligation to collect data for an explicit and legitimate purpose, the principles of accuracy and data retention and the principle of ensuring appropriate security when processing data. For these principles, the CNIL will control the companies and will apply the GDPR sanctions as of May 25, 2018. The CNIL announced strong verifications of company compliance with these principles.
However concerning new principles, such as the right to data portability, the requirement to nominate a Data Protection Officer (DPO) and the requirement of maintaining a record of processing activities, the goal of the first verifications will be to assist companies and help them in understanding and implementing these new principles. The French DPA’s intention will not be to take sanctions immediately on each infringement. Indeed, if a company is acting in good faith and cooperate with the CNIL, these verifications will not lead to procedure of sanctions.
This tolerance only concerns the year 2018 at this time.
The CNIL emphasized that the GDPR will lead to the disappearance of the duty of notification to the national DPA. These notifications will be replaced by the record of processing activities and, where the processing is likely to result in a high risk, by the Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA).
In this way and as a first step, it will exist as a tolerance for implementing a DPIA for current processing. This tolerance will be time limited. Indeed, the GDPR will impose a reassessment of risks in a dynamic way. As a result, this DPIA will be carried out within a reasonable time of three years.
A few days before this statement, the French National Assembly adopted the draft law on personal data protection, effective on May 25, 2018.
