Visa free regime with EU and personal data protection

2015-12-18 13:57:22

Reforms carried out by Georgia within the scope of visa-liberalization dialogue were positively assessed in the fourth report of the European Commission.

EU pays special attention to the fact that same data protection standards are applied in the country which will be granted visa free regime as EU member states.

One of the main parts of the visa-liberalization action plan was recommendation to carry out reforms in the personal data protection area. For this purpose Georgia adopted data protection legislation and created independent agency to supervise its implementation.

EU experts responsible for the assessment of fulfillment of visa-liberalization action plan activities in the area of data protection visited Georgia on February, 2015. The experts acquainted with the activities of the Office of the Personal Data Protection Inspector, specificity of its work and achieved results. EU experts reported that Georgia has successfully implemented data protection legislation in practice in public as well as in the private sector; the Office of the Inspector is functioning effectively, numerous trainings are carried out and significant work has been done for raising public awareness.

The Office of the Personal Data Protection Inspector actively participated in the implementation of the visa-liberalization action plan. We welcome the fact that visa-liberalization dialogue with the EU has successful outcome – said the representatives of the Inspector’s Office.

Visa-liberalization dialogue between Georgia and EU is step towards European integration. However, Georgia still continues reforms in data protection area within the scope of the Association Agreement.