Will Our Personal Data Be Sold by the State? Is the Law Amending the Population Services Law Compatible with the Personal Data Protection Law?

13 November 2017Murat Volkan DülgerCommentary

Introduction

This work was written in Turkish. The summary on this page is a translation; the citation gives the original title in parentheses.

Certain articles of Law No. 7039, the “Law Amending the Population Services Law and Certain Other Laws”, which entered into force on publication in Official Gazette No. 30229 of 3 November 2017, are connected with Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data (KVKK), and I therefore think that it needs to be examined from the standpoint of personal data protection law. For the question I have put in the title, “will our personal data be sold by the State?”, is one I come across frequently on social media these days and also the question I am asked most often. In this article I would like to touch briefly on this subject.

Article 2 of Law No. 7039 added the following paragraph to Article 5 of Law No. 5490: “(3) The Ministry is authorised to keep a single record for each person in the family registers kept in electronic form and to link records of persons and events with the Republic of Türkiye identity number. In that case, the provisions of other laws that are contrary to this article shall not apply.” Under this provision, the Ministry may record certain personal data, and the provisions of other laws that are contrary to this article cannot be applied. At this point it would be accurate to say that an attempt is being made to render the KVKK ineffective.