28 January marks European Data Protection Day. In a joint statement in advance year’s (published on 26 January 2018), four Commissioners stressed that 2018 is going to be a landmark year for data protection in Europe. They mainly referred to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will become reality in May 2018.

The statement summarizes the main novelties introduced by the new data protection legislation as follows:

“The European Union is proud to lead the way and set a high standard for data protection worldwide. We are committed to promote our data protection values at international level. Our economies heavily depend on international data flows. We launched in 2016 the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield to facilitate exchanges with the U.S. We are now discussing with Japan to finalise the formal steps for allowing the free flow of personal data between the EU and Japan. These exchanges fully respect our data protection standards, while facilitating trade.

We are committed to making sure that security, trade and protection of personal data go hand in hand with modernisation and innovation, both at European and global level."