Some consequences for Portuguese law of the regulations arising from the entry into force of the New General Data Protection Regulation

Abstract

The protection of personal data and the privacy of private and family life are Fundamental Rights, enshrined by the Constitution and the EU Primary Law. With the proliferation of the processing of personal data by automated means, the need to enforce such rights has never been so relevant. The transfer of personal data and their treatment by public and private entities is a necessity - and often a condition - in the establishment of legal relations between the various entities that operate in any legal field, covering multiple domains of life in society. The subject gained a new impetus with the approval of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016, on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. However, this Regulation has no specific provisions dealing with the treatment to be given to the data contained in the bases of public registers, namely, land, automobile, civil and commercial records. These records are organized and maintained by the State with the purpose to make known the legal situation of persons and things, to grant the certainty of legal status, being this the basis and justification for such data to be public. However, because of the growing legislative output, these registers cover an increasingly multitude of personal data concerning to various spheres of life of each person, which can be known to anyone, with the sacrifice, for the sake of security of legal trade, of values ​​expressly established in the Fundamental Laws – there is, therefore, a need to harmonize the values ​​at stake.