Frequently Asked Questions

Le RGPD ou le règlement général sur la protection des données crée un ensemble harmonisé de règles applicables à tous les traitements de données personnelles effectués par des organisations (publiques ou privées, quelle que soit leur taille) établies dans l’Espace économique européen (EEE) ou ciblant des personnes physiques dans l’UE. L’objectif principal du RGPD est de veiller à ce que les données personnelles bénéficient du même niveau de protection élevé partout dans l’EEE, d’accroître la sécurité juridique tant pour les personnes physiques que pour les organisations qui traitent des données, et d’offrir un degré élevé de protection aux individus.

Le règlement est entré en vigueur le 24 mai 2016 et s’applique depuis le 25 mai 2018.

Certification bodies are accredited by the national data protection authorities (DPA) or by the national accreditation body (named in accordance with Regulation 17065/2012). For further information regarding certification bodies, we recommend contacting the national DPA in your country. You can find an overview of all EEA DPAs here.

You can find further information regarding accreditation of certification bodies here: Guidelines 4/2018 on the accreditation of certification bodies under Article 43 of the General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679)

Once a public consultation is closed, all contributions to the public consultation are reviewed and, where necessary, the guidelines may be adapted. Once this process has been completed, the guidelines will be up for final adoption at a subsequent EDPB plenary.

The EDPB endorsed WP29 documents are available here.

As regards the other existing WP29 documents, they may remain relevant and helpful insofar as the EDPB has not adopted new documents on the topic and/or they are compatible with the GDPR. This amounts to a case-by-case assessment.

Unfortunately, the EDPB cannot consider late contributions as part of the public consultation.

Controllers should formally submit their EU-wide certification criteria to:

1. the competent data protection authority (DPA) in the EEA country where the scheme owners have their headquarters;
2. the competent data protection authority (DPA) in the EEA country where a certification body operating the certification mechanism have their headquarters, considering the member state in which the most certificates are likely to be issued.

Under the GDPR, certification is conducted by national certification bodies or by the competent national data protection authorities (Art. 42(5) GDPR).

For further information, we recommend contacting the relevant national DPA for your organisation. You can find a overview of all EEA DPAs here.

You can find further information regarding certification in the EDPB guidelines on the topic: Guidelines 1/2018 on certification and identifying certification criteria in accordance with Articles 42 and 43 of the Regulation - version adopted after public consultation

The archived documents adopted by the Article 29 Working Party (1997-2016) are available on the website of the European Commission here: WP29 archive.

Should you experience any difficulty accessing WP29 documents, we recommend contacting the European Commission's DG Justice. The European Commission provided the Secretariat for the Article 29 Working Party and was responsible for all its publications. 

You can contact them by filling out the following form

All comments submitted are screened and reviewed manually before being displayed on our website. There should have been a visual confirmation after submitting your comments on our website.

In any case, please allow for some time before your comments are published.

All individuals residing in the European Economic Area (EEA) have the right to the protection of their personal data.

More specifically, under the GDPR, you have several rights

• Right to be informed
• Right of access
• Right to rectification
• Right to restriction of processing
• Right to data portability
• Right to object
• Right not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing.

For more information on your rights, please consult our leaflet The GDPR and your rights or the EDPB Data Protection Guide for small business.