In May 2018, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), together with the Council of Europe (CoE), published an update of its Handbook on European Data Protection Law, the first edition of which had been published in 2014.

The handbook looks at context and background, terminology, key principles, and rules of European data protection law, its independent supervision, rights of data subjects, and their enforcement. It also covers issues concerning international data transfers and flows of personal data; data protection in the context of police and criminal justice; specific types of data such as health, employment, or financial data and their relevant data protection rules. Lastly, it takes a look at modern challenges in personal data protection such as big data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. Select case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has also been included.

Each chapter of the handbook begins with a table that identifies the legal provisions relevant to the topics dealt with in the specific chapter. The tables cover both CoE and EU law and reference select case law of the ECtHR and the CJEU. The relevant laws of the two different European orders, as they apply to the specific topics addressed, are then presented in sequence. This allows the reader to see where the two legal systems converge and where they differ.