The Ministry of Justice has published a draft law to amend Act No. 78-17 on Data Processing, Data Files and Individual Liberties in light of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as well as the Data Protection Directive with Respect to Law Enforcement (Directive (EU). Marc Lemprire, Partner at Almain Avocats, noted that the draft law is limited in its scope and leaves the task of redrafting the entire Act to the Government through ordinance procedures to increase its legibility and remedy problems of coherence with the rest of French legislation. Therefore, French citizens will need to read the GDPR and the Act together to determine which legislative provisions are applicable. Lemprire noted that the draft law provides for prior authorizations for the use of genetic or biometric data by public authorities, allows data subjects to entrust the defense of their interests regarding infringements of the GDPR before the French data protection authority to associations, and that the French Government will issue a decree listing the data processing that are exempt from the obligation to notify data breaches in view of the risk this may represent to national security.
