Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On January 3, 2017, Bloomberg Law: Privacy and Data Security reported that Chilean legislators are soon expected to consider a new data protection law (the “Bill”) which would impose new privacy compliance standards and certain enforcement provisions on companies doing business in Chile. 

Chile’s existing data protection law, the Law on the Protection of Private Life (Law No. 19,628), was signed into law in 1999 and does not provide for a privacy regulator with enforcement authority. Analysts expect that the Bill, the details of which have not yet been made public, will modify, rather than replace, the existing law, and will provide for the establishment of a data protection authority. It is expected that the data protection authority would report to another government agency rather than operating entirely independently.

The Bill is expected to be submitted before the legislature’s annual recess in February, though experts doubt the Bill will become law before March 2018, when a new administration will take office. Deputy Finance Minister Alejandro Micco indicated that the Bill aims to address the negative effect of inadequate data protection legislation on the development of global technological services in Chile.