The National Supervisory Authority for the Processing of Personal Data, as an autonomous central public authority with general competence in the field of personal data protection, represents the guarantor of respecting the fundamental rights to private life and to the protection of personal data, stipulated especially by Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, by Article 16 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

The year 2016 marks a key moment in the evolution of the European regulations on the protection of personal data through the adoption by the European Parliament and the Council of the Regulation on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and the free movement of such data (General Data Protection Regulation), of direct applicability in all the Member States of the European Union as of the 25th of May 2018, together with the adoption of the Directive on data protection processed for the purpose of preventing, detecting, investigating and prosecuting crimes and other judicial activities.

For our institution, this reform of the normative framework in the field implies, on short term, a complex evaluation of the specific instruments for ensuring the protection of personal data, in order to adapt the national normative framework and the institutional preparation for the application of the new European regulations, including in terms of achieving an efficient cooperation with the European Data Protection Board and the other relevant authorities in the European Union.

Thus, strengthening the administrative capacity of the Authority is a priority and requires the allocation of adequate material, financial and human resources for the exercise of our new specific tasks, for the effective application of the European Union standards provided in the new adopted regulations.

The activity of our institution shall fit to the requirements of observing the rules for the processing of personal data in the public and private domain, in order to achieve the desideratum to ensure a real exercise of the right to data protection of all natural persons.

In this regard we rely on and call for the active involvement of each of you when you shall face various situations in the current activity.

In perspective, we aim to build a true culture of personal data protection in Romania, believing that we shall benefit from the support of decision-makers of central and local public authorities, non-governmental organizations and the private domain.

Ancuța Gianina OPRE

PRESIDENT ANSPDCP