Newsletter-21

Personal Data Protection under Turkish and European Legislation – II* Att. Eda Uludere Introduction Law on Protection of Personal Data numbered 6698 (“LPPD” or “Law”) entered into force through publication in the Official Ga- zette dated 07.04.2016 and numbered 29677. Through enactment of the Law, Turkey has taken the final step on the protection of personal data, and achieved its long-awaited goal in the harmonization process with the European Union. As explained previously, until the entry into force of the Law, the main legal grounds for the protection of personal data were Art. 20 of the Turkish Constitution and Art. 135 of the Turk- ish Criminal Code 1 . As of 18.02.2016 and 07.04.2016, Turkey added two more pieces of legislation upon which the personal data protection is grounded, the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (“Convention No. 108”) and the LPPD, respectively. The former, namely, Convention No. 108, was signed by the Turkish Republic 28.01.1981; however, it was ratified 35 years later by Law numbered 6669. This Article primarily aims to assess the novelties brought by the Law, by comparing and contrasting the provisions’ counterparts in Convention No. 108, where necessary. * Article of March 2016 1 Please see our newsletter titled “Personal Data Protection under Turkish and European Legislation,” published in December 2015. Link: http://www.erdem - erdem.com/en/articles/personal-data-protection-under-turkish-and-european-leg- islation/