In his remarks, Minister of Justice, Ulsi Manja, said that this legal initiative is introduced as part of strengthening the mechanisms of personal data protection.

“Through it, we meet one of the obligations arising from the process of the European Union accession for the full alignment of Albanian legislation with the EU General Regulation for the Protection of Personal Data and the Directive on the processing of personal data by law enforcement bodies (Directive of Police). We also implement the recommendations of the European Commission for Albania in recent years. It is foreseen as one of the priority legal initiatives in the National Plan for European Integration 2022-2024. Other than technical alignment with EU legislation, this draft law increases the standards of citizens’ personal data protection as well as the effectiveness of addressing any type of abuse,” he said.

Manja added that “precisely to achieve our goals, we will set new standards in our national legislation for maximum data protection and guarantee. On the one hand, the range of rights of data subjects will be expanded and on the other, new obligations will be added for data controllers and processors. The responsibilities of the Commissioner have been reviewed, in order for this institution to adapt to the new challenges arising from the implementation of this legislation. Also, this draft law introduces tougher administrative sanctions in cases of data breach.