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Data Sovereignty
Newsletter No. 27
The third quarter of 2026 will remain a landmark period in the history of personal data protection in the Republic of Moldova. On August 23, 2026, Law No. 160/2026 on the protection of personal data processed for the purposes of preventing and combating crime officially entered into force. This structural reform aligns national legislation with European standards—Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 27, 2016, on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, repealing Directive 95/46/EC (GDPR). During the same period, the Additional Protocol amending the modernized Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal Data (Convention 108+) was ratified, radically transforming the approach to how citizens’ data are collected, stored, and processed. Public and private data controllers now have clear obligations: from implementing “privacy by design” principles to appointing a data protection officer (DPO) under specific conditions and promptly reporting security breaches.