On May 25, 2018, the EU General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) and the new German Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz
/ BDSG-neu) will come into force.

Implementation
Deadline: May 25, 2018!

Companies have to fully implement the new requirements
of the GDPR and the BDSG-neu until May 25, 2018. In case of breach of data
protection obligations, sensitive fines of up to 20 million Euro or 4% of
worldwide turnover can be imposed!

Data protection is about the protection of
personal data. The fundamental right to informational self-determination
guarantees everyone the right to determine the use and disclosure of their
personal data. As a result, almost every business is affected, since customer
contact generally involves information related to certain identifiable natural
persons (such as name, date of birth, IP address).

The most relevant provisions on future,
Europe-wide directly applicable data protection can be found in the GDPR. The
regulation will be relevant for companies on the important issue of which data
protection legislation to comply with.

Without legal basis or
consent no data processing!

The new legal situation will not change the
fundamental principle that without any legal basis or consent any processing of
personal data is prohibited. The lawfulness of processing will primarily result
from Art. 6 GDPR.

There is a particular need for action with
regard to the documentation and founding of data processing processes. Under Art.
30 GDPR, for example, each controller shall maintain a record of processing
activities under its responsibility, which must be made available to the
supervisory authorities upon request.

In addition, the GDPR contains open clauses in
certain fields, which must or can be implemented by the national legislators. The
German legislator has made use of this possibility in the BDSG-neu.

Since organizational processes in the company
must be substantially adjusted, a careful analysis of the requirements of the
new data protection law and the operational implementation of data protection
are urgently required!