Infringement Procedure Against Hungary Due to the Violation of the Independence of the DPA?
As of 1 January 2012 a new Agency (Data Protection and Freedom of Information Agency / NAIH) is responsible for the compliance with data protection and freedom of information laws in Hungary.
According to the information of the news portal origo.hu, the European Commission would very shortly launch infringement proceedings against Hungary due to the termination of the office of the Data Protection Commissioner who served as data protection supervisor until 31 December 2011. Origo.hu also reports that Ms Viviane Reding has informally already communicated to Hungarian Government officials the EU Commission’s opinion that the termination of the Commissioner’s position prior to the end of its term of office (until 2014 ) and appointment of an entirely new data protection supervisor most probably violates the independence of data protection authorities articulated by the European Data Protection Directive. We have already provided an overview of the complaint submitted by Hungarian NGO’s to the European Commission in our earlier blog post.
