In compliance with 2nd clause of Article 16 of Turkish Personal Data Protection Law no.6698 (Law), natural and legal persons processing data are obliged to register to the Data Controllers Registry (Registry) before proceeding with data process. Data Controllers Registry is open to general public, the information to be entered to the Registry is required to be based on the personal data process inventory that data controllers are obliged to issue. With the decision dated 07.19.2018 and numbered 2018/88 of Board of Protection of Personal Data, the commencement dates of obligation to register to the data controllers’ registry have been regulated. Within this scope,
– It is determined that natural and legal persons (data controllers) whose number of employees are more than 50 or their total annual financial statement is more than 25 million TL are obliged to register to Registry as of 1st of October, 2018 and in any case latest until the 30th of September, 2019.
– It is determined that natural and legal persons (data controllers) non-resident of Turkey are obliged to register to Registry as of 1st of October, 2018 and in any case latest until the 30th of September, 2019.
– Besides, it is determined that natural and legal persons (data controllers) whose number of employees are less than 50 or their total annual financial statement is less than 25 million TL but their main field of activity is processing personal data of special nature are obliged to register to Registry as of 1st of January, 2019 and in any case latest until the 31th of March, 2020.
The decision given by the Board includes the phrase “An exemption may be brought for the obligation of register to the Data Controllers Registry.” However, it should not be forgotten that even if you are not obliged to register to the Data Controllers Registry, you are still obliged to process data in accordance with Law in any case. It is interesting the regulation does not cover which date shall apply in case the total employee number is 50, but not above or less.
We would like to remind you that, in accordance with Law, those who violate the obligation to register to Registry are subjected with a fine from TRY 20.000 up to 1.000.000 TL.
Kind regards,
Eyüboğlu Büyükatak Attorneys at Law