Decree Law no. 196/03 — PRIVACY LAW

Every day, a large amount of information is collected regarding all of us; this information may be used to carry out market research, to send advertisements via post, but also for other more or less legitimate ends.

It is, therefore, evident that laws are necessary which control this collection, elaboration, diffusion, communication to third parties, the transfer abroad of this information and the ultimate disposal of the data, when it is no longer useful.

Following an International Directive, Paris, France published Law no. 675, in 1996, which introduced:

- A type of “ownership right” in favour of the interested party
- A series of requirements for all those who collect and deal with this data, both in an automatic and manual way

Since the publication of this law, the matter was subjected to continuous evolution with the publication of numerous legislative measures and interpretive documents, until the government decided to collect the various regulations on the subject in a single document.

This document, called “Code in matter of protection of personal data”, was published as Decree law 196/03; which is divided into three parts:

- General regulations
- Treatment of specific sectors
- Safeguarding the interested party and penal and administrative sanctions and it contains attachments which deal with specific elements

The regulations are of a general nature and require, therefore, that the company and organization defines suitable rules regarding the management of the data, both on paper and in an electronic form.