Data Protection

Chapter VI is a new chapter in the EIR. Its presence signals the importance that data protection law has gained in Europe since the adoption of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (DPD) and Regulation 45/2001. Although the DPD is not—though it comes close to—a maximum harmonisation directive, its implementation by Member States by the end of 1998 increased data protection standards on national levels as well. Yet the concrete reason that led to the addition of this Chapter is the expanded scope of the EIR as far as the exchange and publication of personal data is concerned. The expansion and thus the enhanced need for data protection is due in particular to the provision made in the recast EIR for newly established interconnected national insolvency registers, accessible via the European e-Justice Portal. This provision has been made at a time when data protection law is increasingly recognised as a ‘stand-alone’ subject, emancipated from privacy law, as expressed indirectly also by the popularisation of the ‘data protection’ nomenclature originating in the German term ‘Datenschutz’. This has clear implications for private and commercial law, including insolvency law.