"The Council approved in the first reading its position on the data protection system reform, paving the way for the final adoption of the legislative package by the European Parliament at the plenary session in April," the press service told RIA Novosti.
The service reiterated that the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament in December 2015 agreed a text of data protection reform. Following the approval of the reform package the member states, law firms and service providers are given two years to make the appropriate amendments.
Data protection reform legislation was launched in 2012 to ensure people had some control over their personal data.
The European justice ministers agreed to establish a single set of rules for data protection for the European Union, strengthen and add extra rights for citizens, grant more powers for independent national data protection authorities, as well as establish a single supervisory authority for the bloc.
