22.03.2024

Authors: Sema Çelebi, Özlem Gengönül, Serdarhan Güler, Sude Emir

The Amendment of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Certain Laws, which includes amendments to the Personal Data Protection Law ("KVKK") numbered 6698, was published in the Official Gazette dated 12.03.2024 and numbered 32487. Within the scope of the amendments made to the KVKK, in order to meet the needs arising in practice, to respond to the concrete problems of data controllers, to resolve the blocked processes in practice and to comply with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), the law on the processing of special categories of personal data (Article 6), the provisions on the transfer of data to third countries or international organizations (Article 9) and on misdemeanours (Article 18) have been amended and a transitional article (Provisional Article 3) has been introduced in order to create a transitional period.

The amendment provides for a two-stage transition. Accordingly, the first paragraph of Article 9, before it was amended, will continue to apply until 1 September 2024, when the amended version of the article will enter into force, and the remaining regulations will enter into force on 1 June 2024.