The Law On Protection of Personal Data has been enacted by the Parliament and has been published in Official Gazette April 7, 2016. It has become effective as of the publication date.
Personal data has been defined as "all kind of information belonging to an identified or can be identifiable real persons". The scope of the personal data does not only include name/surname information and it also includes all physical, social, cultural, economic and psychologic information.
Actions of data processing are not indicated and limited specifically in the Law, therefore any kind of actions regarding the data can be deemed as data processing.
Personal Data shall not be process without explicit consent of the data subject, yet if one of the situations stated in the Law occurs, the data can be processed without consent of the owner.
Some of the data is indicated as sensitive personal data, and such data shall not be processed in principle without the explicit consent of the data subject. Data Process of such sensitive data can be processed after providing required precautions determined by the Personal Data Protection Board which is linked to the Data Protection Authority.
The law gives persons to be informed whether or not their data is processed, transferred to the others and what is processed about oneself. In case of incorrect data process data subject shall be entitled to demand the correction. Besides, if data subjects are in the opinion of any violation of his/her rights, data subject is entitled to apply the data responsible, if this application results in negative or remains unanswered, the data subject shall apply to the Board.
It has been brought some exception the protection of personal data. One of the remarkable exception is the one regarding process of the personal data within the scope of preventive, protective, informative activities by the public organizations and institutions authorized and assigned by the laws regarding providing national defense, national security, public security, public order or economic security. In accordance with the conditions stipulated in this provisions the activities done by the National Intelligence Service and intelligence agencies are not included in the scope.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.