Guide to Turkey’s Law on the Protection of Personal Data (LPPD)

In this guide:

1. Core details of Turkey’s LPPD
2. Best practices for business compliance
3. Data privacy industry overview

Core details of Turkey’s Law on the Protection of Personal Data (LPPD)

Turkey’s Law on the Protection of Personal Data (LPPD, or KVKK in Turkish) is a comprehensive legislation enacted to safeguard individuals’ fundamental rights and freedoms, particularly their right to privacy regarding the processing of their personal data. The law was inspired by the predecessors to the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and was implemented to align Turkey’s data protection standards with international norms.

Data protection legislation in Turkey is regulated by the Personal Data Protection Authority, which is empowered with administrative and financial autonomy to enforce the provisions within this law and other data protection legislation to hold organizations accountable. In cases where the provisions of the LPPD are not respected, individuals may lodge a formal complaint which may result in compensation.

The LPPD applies to the processing of personal data within Turkey, regardless of whether the data processing is carried out by natural or legal persons, public authorities, or private entities. The law outlines principles that must be adhered to when processing personal data, including lawfulness, fairness, accuracy, purpose limitation, data minimization, storage limitation, integrity, and confidentiality. Along with these principles, Turkish citizens, residents and even visitors whose data is processed within Turkey–referred to as “data subjects”–are granted specific rights regarding their personal data. The scope is extraterritorial, which means organizations must respect the data subject rights of individuals located in Turkey regardless of their location, even if it’s outside of the country.

Data subjects are given the following rights when reaching out to an organization holding their personal data:

• Right to demand information about if your personal data is being processed by the organization.
• Right to learn the purpose of your personal data processing and whether your personal data is being used in compliance with the established purpose.
• Right to know the third parties to whom your personal data is being transferred in Turkey or abroad.
• Right to rectify incomplete or inaccurate data.
• Right to erase your personal data under certain conditions.
• Right to data portability so you can transfer your own data to third parties in a machine-readible format.
• Right to object to automated decision-making using your personal data.
• Right to claim compensation for the damage arising from the unlawful processing of your personal data.

By empowering individuals with stronger rights over their personal data, the public has more control over how their information is being used by organizations. Plus, the LPPD has increased awareness among the general public about the importance of personal data protection, which is vital in this digital age. With this increased transparency and accountability for organizations, data processing activities can be properly assessed and improved via public scrutiny. Plus, the LPPD forces organizations to have effective data security measures, which will be expanded upon in the next section of this article. Data subjects have legal recourse since the implementation of the LPPD, which was a necessary step to truly change business practices.

Turkey should be applauded, like every country with active data privacy legislation, for establishing rights for the public to control their own personal data. In doing so, Turkey places obligations upon businesses to be more responsible with their data handling practices and more respectful of requests to review and remove a person’s information. This is a step in the right direction and aligns with global data protection laws, setting the country up for smoother international relations and commerce while building trust between consumers and the companies they do business with every day.

[Source: Turkey’s Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK)]

Best practices for business compliance

Turkey’s LPPD has several significant impacts on organizations processing the data of individuals in Turkey. It effects businesses by imposing compliance requirements, enhancing data security measures, influencing business processes, requiring training and awareness programs, managing data subject rights, recommending DPIAs, regulating cross-border data transfers, and imposing penalties for non-compliance. Adhering to LPPD requirements is essential for businesses to mitigate privacy risks, protect personal data, and maintain trust with customers and stakeholders.

Here’s an overview of some of the key impacts:

• Compliance requirements: The LPPD imposes strict compliance requirements on businesses regarding the processing of personal data. Companies must ensure that their data processing activities comply with the principles and provisions outlined in the law. This includes obtaining consent from data subjects, implementing appropriate security measures, and maintaining records of data processing activities.
• Data security measures: Businesses are required to implement robust data security measures to protect personal data from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. This may involve investing in secure IT infrastructure, encryption technologies, access controls, and regular security audits to ensure compliance with LPPD requirements.
• Impact on business processes: Compliance with the LPPD may necessitate changes to existing business processes and practices. Companies may need to review and update their data handling procedures, privacy policies, and contracts with third-party service providers.
• Training and awareness programs: Businesses are responsible for ensuring their employees understand their obligations under the LPPD and receive adequate training on data protection principles and best practices. Training and awareness programs can help employees recognize and mitigate potential data privacy risks within the organization.
• Data subject rights management: The LPPD grants individuals various rights over their personal data, such as the right to access, rectify, erase, and restrict the processing of their data. Businesses must establish processes and mechanisms to facilitate the exercise of these rights by data subjects and respond to requests within the specified timeframes.
• Cross-border data transfers: The LPPD regulates the transfer of personal data outside of Turkey, requiring businesses to implement appropriate safeguards when transferring data to countries that do not mandate an adequate level of protection. This may involve using standard contractual clauses, binding corporate rules, or obtaining explicit consent from data subjects for cross-border data transfers.
• Penalties for non-compliance: Non-compliance with the LPPD can result in significant penalties, including administrative fines, legal liabilities, and reputation damage. Businesses that fail to comply with the requirements may face sanctions imposed by the Turkish Personal Data Protection Authority and may be held accountable for any damages resulting from privacy violations.

These requirements should not be viewed as a burden, but as an opportunity to build consumer trust and differentiate your organization by promoting a focus on data privacy. Two paths emerge today: make data privacy a priority, or later be forced into compliance by a slew of punitive legal actions and fines. The choice seems clear.

To go above and beyond, and ensure compliance with more stringent international regulations, businesses should consider implementing the following best practices:

1. Understand and align with shifting requirements: Thoroughly understand the provisions of each international law separately and regularly review updates to ensure full compliance.
2. Establish a robust privacy policy: Develop and maintain a comprehensive privacy policy that clearly communicates how personal data is collected, processed, and protected. Ensure that the privacy policy is easily accessible to data subjects.
3. Implement explicit consent mechanisms: Obtain explicit and informed consent from individuals before collecting, processing, or using their personal data. Clearly communicate the purposes for data processing and allow individuals to make informed decisions about their information.
4. Data minimization and purpose limitation: Practice data minimization by collecting only the minimum amount of personal data necessary for the intended purposes. Ensure that data processing activities align with the specific purposes for which consent was obtained.
5. Secure data management: Implement robust security measures to protect personal data from unauthorized access, disclosure, or alteration. Regularly assess and update security protocols to address evolving threats.
6. Ensure data accuracy and currency: Establish procedures to maintain the accuracy, completeness, and currency of personal data. Regularly review and update records to reflect any changes in individuals’ information.
7. Enable data subject rights: Facilitate the exercising of data subject rights, including the right to access, correct, and delete personal data. Establish mechanisms for individuals to easily submit requests related to their data.
8. Anonymization and pseudonymization: Where applicable, utilize anonymization or pseudonymization techniques to process personal data, especially if it is still possible to fulfill the intended purposes through these methods.
9. Conduct Data Privacy Impact Assessments (DPIAs): Perform DPIAs to assess the impact of data processing activities on privacy. This proactive approach helps identify and mitigate potential privacy risks, and is mandatory under several international laws.
10. Train employees on data protection: Provide comprehensive training to employees on data protection principles, international requirements, and the organization’s privacy policies. Foster a culture of privacy awareness and responsibility.
11. Employ a Data Protection Officer (DPO): Consider appointing a DPO to oversee compliance efforts, act as a point of contact for data subjects, and ensure ongoing adherence to data protection practices.
12. Regularly audit and monitor compliance: Conduct regular internal audits to assess compliance with PIPA requirements. Monitor data processing activities to identify and address any deviations from established privacy practices.

By following these best practices, any organization can ensure its ability to scale internationally. In addition, these best practices enhance trust and reputation, reduce legal risks and potential penalties, improve data security, give a competitive advantage in the market, build stronger customer relationships, and establish invaluable risk management processes. Rest assured, customers will take note of your innovations and ethical data practices as this continues to grow as a consumer pain point.

Data privacy industry overview

Personal data protection is vital for organizations engaged in online service delivery today, especially for sensitive data. New regulations are popping up every day around the world. Currently, more stringent opt-in policies are the trend to grant consumers even more rights. In most countries, the public now has the ability to review and remove their personal data. This increases the accountability and obligations of every organization processing personal identifiable information (PII).

Yet the onus still falls on the individual to oversee, assess, update and delete their personal data wherever it may be collected and dispersed across the internet. That’s a lot to handle.

Monitoring and removing data exposures becomes a massive lift for any business looking to protect their organization from data breaches. When working to cover an entire company, it is practically impossible for a single person or small team to manage External Data Privacy without help from a specialized team of privacy experts. The identification and subsequent elimination of this data plays a pivotal role in deterring cybercriminals from launching dangerous social engineering attacks against an organization.

That’s why Privacy Bee emerges as the ideal solution. The process of monitoring and eradicating employee data as a complement to cybersecurity is a must, but it’s incredibly time-consuming. Privacy Bee already covers every site across the internet exposing your organization’s data and puts it to work for you. This data monitoring and deletion service is especially effective for executives who are highly visible to the general public.

Using sophisticated automation processes backed by an active human service team, Privacy Bee substantially reduces a company’s attack surface and mitigates the looming threat of an expensive data breach. Industry estimates put the cost of a single data breach anywhere between $7-10 million USD. That can be crippling for a small or mid-size business–not to mention the fines from noncompliance–which is why a proactive approach for maximum security is a must.

Social engineering attacks are already the most successful attack vector and are considered the fastest-growing data breach threat, no matter how mature an organization’s cybersecurity program is today. If your response to these attacks isn’t already thorough, then threat actors still have a lucrative way to target and obtain your organization’s most sensitive information, either holding it for ransom of selling it to competitors or bad actors abroad.

Ideally, you are already conducting risk assessments and vendor surveys as well. If so, well done! However, it is absolutely essential to recognize vendors are most susceptible to a breach via social engineering attacks relying on exposed personal data. Privacy Bee not only minimizes the proliferation of your organization’s data across the vast digital landscape but also extends its protection to vendors, helping to ensure third party partners do not serve as the weak link in an organization’s security defenses. Don’t miss this step, as there are far too many massive organizations falling victim to cyberattacks due to a vendor’s lack of proactive security. It happens every day.

How can this be stopped? Who is behind these data exposures?

In the growing billion-dollar surveillance industry, Data Brokers and People Search Sites are the key players. They reap record-breaking profits by trading and transferring your organization’s information with obscure and uncontrollable entities. These entities then either publish this information directly for clicks or compile it all to sell on again to yet another organization. Because of these groups, you and your employees’ personal data can be easily found by doing a quick Google (or Bing, or any other engine!) search.

If it’s that simple to find you and your coworker’s information, then threat actors can launch cyberattacks at scale by targeting the most vulnerable team members with emotionally engaging messaging that turns even the most highly-trained professionals into victims on a regular basis. No amount of training of internal cybersecurity defenses can 100% prevent this. The only way to stop these attacks is by stopping the data flow at the source. The consequences are simply too costly to risk:

• A single data breach leads to massive productivity losses, expensive remediation efforts, and a high likelihood of repeat breach incidents.
• This isn’t new, and is a predicament that plagues the vast majority of businesses following an initial breach. Industry estimates state as many as 83% of organizations who experienced a data breach go on to experience multiple. That is staggering, and is exactly what Privacy Bee is fighting back against.
• The initial data breach sets off a chain reaction that inflicts short-term damage on your bottom line while eroding brand value and customer trust over time.
• Furthermore, there are ripple effects to consider, such as an increase in spam emails and telemarketing along with heightened employee turnover due to poaching.

Privacy Bee combats threat actors lurking beyond your organization’s internal defenses. By meticulously analyzing every external location across the internet where your personal and sensitive data resides, then swiftly purging it, Privacy Bee closes the data security gap. The service even encompasses dark web monitoring and provides timely data breach notifications if another company falls victim to an exploitation incident and exposes your information in the process.

Our unwavering commitment is deeply rooted in the belief that privacy is an inalienable human right that transcends political discourse and negotiations. This is why Privacy Bee vigilantly monitors user data for security vulnerabilities while holding the surveillance industry accountable. We compel Data Brokers, People Search Sites, and more than 160,000 additional Custom Sites to expunge your data and opt out of further data collection to protect you, your family, and your entire organization. This unchanging goal is the reason we offer no-charge monitoring services and deletion guides. You need only reach out when help is needed.

Privacy Bee protection covers a wide range of potential threats, including:

1. Data breaches
2. Social engineering attacks
3. Doxxing
4. Spam emails
5. Telemarketing calls
6. Cyberstalking
7. Identity theft
8. Swatting
9. Blackmail
10. And more!

Privacy Bee is quickly emerging as the next necessary tool in your security tool belt. There’s no better addition for business leaders with a mature cybersecurity program wanting to protect employee and customer data in the midst of innovative threat actors using AI and other new systems to scale their efforts.

Privacy is more important and harder to come by than ever. Today, you need a trusted partner fighting to preserve your personal and organizational integrity.