General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Revolution Coming to European Data Protection Laws in 2018. What’s New for Ordinary Citizens?

This Article concerns the EU data protection reform which will come into effect from 25th of May 2018 and will be directly applicable in all Member States. The EU data protection reform aims to build a modern and comprehensive data protection framework for the European Union. The GDPR makes a number of changes in data protection laws, e.g. it introduces new obligations for data controllers and processors, brings new status and new tasks for Data Protection Officers (DPOs), gives more rights to data subjects and most importantly completely changes the perception of data protection law by introducing rules such as privacy by design, privacy by default. The Author describes selected changes, in general, from the viewpoint of an ordinary citizen.