The Austrian parliament will get a data supervisory authority on January 1. The new committee consists of five people and will monitor data processing in the future.
The Chancellery announced this on Tuesday. The Austrian legislature established the new commission as a supervisory authority based on a 2024 ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), according to a press release. From January 1, the five members will ensure data protection for the National Council, the Federal Council, the Court of Audit and the Ombudsman.
Gerhard Baumgartner, Christian Bergauer, Philipp Grasser, Sandra Huber and Eva Souhrada-Kirchmayer are lawyers. They were elected for five years after a public election and will hold their office in addition to their professional activities.
This year, the ECJ decided which types of personal data may be used for advertising and in which cases. He made it clear that certain personal data must be extra protected, that companies may only process what is absolutely necessary and that storage must be limited in time.
The new committee is part of a legislative package that also adapts the National Council’s rules of procedure to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and creates an explicit legal basis for the processing of highly sensitive data by lawmakers.
Source: Krone
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