2016.ANA METIN ingilizce.01

Personal data protection in the Turkish system finds its roots in the

last paragraph of Art. 20 of the Constitution, which was added to the

provision on 12.09.2010. This paragraph reads: “

Everyone has the

right to request the protection of his/her personal data. This right

includes being informed of, having access to and requesting the cor-

rection and deletion of his/her personal data, and to be informed

whether these are used in consistency with envisaged objectives.

Personal data can be processed only in cases envisaged by law or by

the person’s explicit consent. The principles and procedures regarding

the protection of personal data shall be laid down in law.

” The law

foreseen by the law-maker in the last sentence has been on the Turkish

legislative agenda for many years. Aligned very closely with the

Directive, the fourth version of the Draft Law on the Protection of

Personal Data (“Draft Law”) was issued in 2014, and is expected to

become law in 2016

The protection regarding electronic commercial communication is

enshrined in the Law on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce num-

bered 6563 (“E-Commerce Law”), published in the Official Gazette

dated 05.11.2014 and numbered 29166 and entered into force on

01.05.2015. This article addresses the personal data protection that

falls outside the scope of the E-Commerce Law and, where applicable

and necessary, adopt a comparative approach with the corresponding

EU legislation

The Definition

The definition of personal data is provided in Art. 2(a) of the

Directive as “

… any information relating to an identified or identifi-

able natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable person is one who

can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an

identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical,

physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity.

” As is

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In a more recent note, the draft has been submitted to the Presidency of Turkish Grand National

Assembly on December 2015.

For an evaluation of personal data protection in e-commerce under Turkish law, please see:

of-electronic-commerce/ (date of access: 30.12.2015).