CHILE

On June 13, the Senate Constitution Committee made progress in voting a bill to protect Chilean’s personal data. Lawmakers approved amendments to the rules governing companies based outside Chile handling Chilean data and specified the legal responsibilities of each party regarding the transfer of user data to third parties. The legislators have yet to define the institutional framework required to ensure compliance with the law, to be decided in next week’s session. The bill will also pass to the Senate floor.

According to Committee chairman, Sen. Felipe Harboe (Partido por la Democracia – opposition), “few points remain to be agreed upon in order to pass the bill, including the enforcement authority.” They agreed to oblige foreign companies handling data from Chilean users to communicate on an ongoing basis with the future enforcement authority. Likewise, they specified that outsourcing database management does not exempt entities contracting these third parties from liability as all parties share a degree of responsibility.

Although the committee originally intended to approve the bill at its meeting, the decision had to be postponed after disagreements broke out over the issue of health data protection. The legislators hope to overcome this obstacle during next week’s session, when they will also be defining the enforcement authority, either a Personal Data Protection Agency, or the Council for Transparency.