Even before transposing the Directive, Germany has an obligation under
Council of Europe Convention 108 (which Germany ratified) to prevent the
transfer of personal data to countries that have not ratified Convention 108
and do not otherwise provide "equivalent" protection. That is why
contractual guarantees have been used for several years to justify the
transfer of German data to countries without laws based on the Convention.
(Within the EU itself, there was an issue of non-equivalent protection with
regard to Greece and Italy until they adopted their first data privacy laws,
which are based on the Directive.)
Though half of the Member States have not yet transposed the Directive, all
now have laws based on either the Directive or Convention 108.
Consequently, it appears that German data should move freely within the EU
even during this period of transition before the Directive is fully
implemented.
Scott Blackmer
Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering
Washington, DC
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-----Original Message-----
From: Sven Lütkemeier [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 1999 1:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: German DPA
At 16:14 Uhr +0100 14.07.1999, Walshe, Pat wrote:
>What exists in German DP law to prevent the transfer of a customer's
>personal data to another EU member country or to prevent access to data
held
>in German from a parent company based in another EU state?
>
>I cannot find anything in the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) or the
>Telecom Act (TKG) that prevents this?
The BDSG isn´t yet amended to comply with the EC data protection
directive. This explains why there still aren´t any special
regulations concerning trans border data flow other than the general
provisons (sec. 28, 29 BDSG).
Within the EC there shouldn´t be any special problems, especially
given that the EC data protection stipulates free data flow within
the EC.
--
Sven Lütkemeier Erkelenz, Germany
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