An Exception Has Been Made to the Obligation to Register in the Data Controller Registry 17 May 2018

According to the Paragraph 2 of Article 16 of the Law on Protection of Personal Data (“the Law”) and Article 8 of the Regulation on Data Controllers Registry (“the Regulation”); natural and legal persons who process the personal data are obliged to register in the Data Controllers Registry (“the Registry”) before the commencement of processing.

On the other hand; it has been regulated under the Law that an exception may be provided by the Board of Protection of Personal Data (“Board”) to the obligation to register in the Registry by taking the some objective criteria into consideration.

Within this scope; the Board resolution dated 02.04.2018 and numbered 2018/7 which determines the data controllers who are excluded from the obligation to register in the data controllers registry has been published in the Official Gazette dated 15.05.2018 and numbered 30422.

Pursuant to the respective Resolution; the ones who process personal data by non-automated means which form part of a filing system, notary publics, political parties, lawyers, independent accountant financial advisors, sworn financial advisors, associations, foundations and specific trade unions that process personal data only belong to their members and donators have been excluded from the obligation to register in the Registry.

With respect to this issue; the determination of whether the companies process personal data by non-automated means which form part of a filing system or not has significant importance for the companies. Within the scope of the relevant legislation; it should be determined whether the companies are obliged to register in Registry, the registration transaction should be completed within this direction and thus, the administrative fines changing from 20.000,-TL to 1.000.000,-TL should be prevented by this means.