Law for the Protection of Personal Data is published in the Official Gazette

After seven years in Congress, the Personal Data Protection Law was published on Friday, December 13. This legislation regulates the protection and processing of personal data and creates the Personal Data Protection Agency.

This law considers definitions such as: sensitive personal data, public access sources, data controller, data processing, consent, among others; and establishes that the processing of personal data will be governed by eight principles: lawfulness and loyalty, purpose, proportionality, quality, responsibility, security, transparency and information, and confidentiality. Regarding infringements, these are classified as minor, serious and very serious with fines that can reach up to 20,000 UTM.

The director of NUDOS, Ingrid Bachmann, values this regulation positively and assures that “it is undoubtedly an important step forward in terms of ensuring rights, sanctioning abuses and strengthening digital privacy”.

From the publication of the law, there is a period of 24 months for it to enter into force and for companies to adapt to the new regulations.

“In an increasingly digitized world this is a very significant issue: any user should know what their data is used for or those who have access to this information should be responsible with its handling. Without being a perfect or automatic law – it will only come into force in 24 months – it is more in line with international standards and, importantly, it creates a Data Protection Agency, a necessary institution to supervise and guarantee the application of the law”, concludes the academic from the Catholic University.