Data Privacy Day

The European Data Protection Day

Raising awareness for data privacy

January 28 is European Data Protection Day. Annually on January since 2007, the data protection day has drawn attention to the high importance of data protection within the EU. The data privacy day main aim is to raise general public’s awareness in the sphere of data handling (including peoples’ own personal data). The occasion takes place every year since 2007 within the EU. Indisputably, data protection is becoming increasingly important for business and people's daily lives. After all, more and more personal data is being collected, so ensuring of data privacy is a crucial task.

What is the aim of the European Data Protection Day?

Data protection Day aims to make people in Europe more aware of such issues, as:

•    which of their personal data is collected
•    who, on what occasion and for what purpose processes it. 

This data privacy day is also intended to make people aware of what is data privacy, why is it so important and what rights they have with regard to the processing of data. On this day, governments, parliaments, national data protection authorities and other stakeholders organize campaigns to raise awareness about data protection and privacy. These are campaigns for the general public, educational projects for teachers and students, open day at data protection authorities and conferences. 

Why January 28?

The basic idea for European Data Protection Day goes back to the European Data Protection Convention. This day, on January 28, 1981, the Council of Europe adopted Convention No. 108 "for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data." The Council of Europe Data Protection Convention was the first legally binding intergovernmental data protection agreement and international instrument for the protection of personal data. 

What was the goal of the 1981 data protection convention?

The Data Protection Convention was intended to ensure for all people in the signatory states that their rights and fundamental freedoms were protected - in particular, the right to privacy in the automatic processing of personal data. The signatory states undertook to enact national data protection laws based on the principles of the convention. 

Which states have signed the convention?

The 47 member states of the Council of Europe have signed the convention. These include all EU member states as well as a number of other countries such as Russia and Switzerland. Some countries, such as Mexico or Tunisia, have also ratified the convention.

Why is data protection so important?

In recent years, a step change in the amount of data processed took place in Europe and worldwide. Data is becoming increasingly important for the economy and people's daily lives. As a result, more and more personal information is being collected. The list of activities, when personal data includes, but isn’t limited to: 

•    interacting with public authorities
•    dealing with work duties
•    visiting healthcare facilities 
•    purchasing goods 
•    using services
•    traveling 
•    surfing the Internet.

Many people don’t understand clearly, what stands for data privacy, and are often unaware of the risks associated with their personal data and their rights in this regard. They rarely know what to do if they feel their rights have been violated or are unaware of the role of national data protection authorities. It has already become of crucial importance to ensure data privacy.

Thus, robust rules to decrease risks for individuals are required.

For this reason, on April 14, 2016 the European Parliament adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is in may ways the follower of Convention No. 108. The GDPR came into force on May 25, 2018.  The new regulation has given the EU a uniform set of rules on data  protection that applies equally in all EU member states. The GDPR offers users and companies more protection as well as legal certainty. Among other  things, it entails new information obligations for all those who collect and  process personal data. Currently, we can observe a similar tendency around the world. More and more countries’ officials develop or strengthen  national  legislation, aimed at managing data collection, processing and transmitting processes. Thus, in  the nearest future, the situation with data safety and privacy should improve.