How the data protection law will affect companies

"This is by far the most important law that will affect the biggest number of people in Turkey that the government has endorsed in the last couple of years," said Hakk? Can Y?ld?z, from Esin Attorney Partnership.

The new commercial code, which came into force in 2012, and the law on consumer protection, which came into force in 2013, were also very important, but they consisted of amendments to the already existing laws, said Y?ld?z, adding that it was the first time Turkey has endorsed a law to protect personal data. 

The critics of Turkey's relations with the European Union do not want to see that a big majority of reforms in this country have taken place thanks to the membership process, even though the process has been disrupted many times. This is the case with the data protection law as well. 

The Turkish public has become familiar with cyber security/information security issues only belatedly and unfortunately thanks to cyber-attacks and data breaches which have taken place in the past couple of years. 

The most recent incident, a data breach about the information on the identity cards of 50 million Turkish citizens, would have led to a big scandal anywhere else in the democratic world. No one has so far assumed responsibility for the data breach, which took place in 2010 when the Supreme Election Board shared the information of the electorates with the political parties ahead of an election, as required by law. While the blame game continues between the government and the main opposition party, the fact remains that while the government was quick to endorse information technology on state affairs, it was not as quick to take measures against the downside of it.

The fact that Turkey did not have a personal data...

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