Facilities and powers of the data protection officer

It should be noted that in the case of large-scale operations involving personal data, a team of data protection officers may be required (the team includes the data protection officer and his/her employees).

In such cases the team structure and the tasks of each team need to be clearly defined.

Several provisions in the data protection legislation are intended to ensure that the data protection officer can operate independently:

• He must not be instructed by the controller or the processor on how to do his job.

• He must not be fired or punished for his work as a data protection officer.

• He should not have the opportunity to have his interests in other projects and activities overlap with his work as a data protection officer.