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Free flow of non-Personal Data – Malta

MT Single Information Point: https://ffnpd.gov.mt

MT Single Point of Contact: ffnpd.dgc@gov.mt

Updated: 14 October 2024

The Regulation

Regulation (EU) 2018/1807 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 November 2018 on a framework for the free flow of non-personal data in the European Union (ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2018/1807/oj)

A primary principle of the Free Flow of Non-Personal Data Regulation is the removal of all unjustified legal and administrative data localisation requirements for non-personal data throughout the Union (Article 4). A data localisation requirement would most commonly be a law or administrative provision that would require data, in this case non-personal data, to be held within Malta’s jurisdiction.

Implementation in Malta

Malta’s Single Information Point is https://ffnpd.gov.mt and the Single Point of Contact is through the email address: ffnpd.dgc@gov.mt to reach the Data Governance Council.

The duties of the single contact and information point are the following:

  • The information point provides information on the free flow of data and data localisation restrictions in Maltese legislation.
  • The contact point transmits data requests from authorities in other EU countries to relevant competent authorities in Malta.

The rules for dealing with personal data differ from those for non-personal data. Personal and non-personal data are often collected and stored together; this is known as mixed data. If you handle mixed datasets, the same level of protection as personal data applies. The single contact and information point does not give advice on EU provisions on the processing of personal data, or process data requests related to personal data. In Malta, the Information and Data Protection Commissioner (https://idpc.org.mt/) supervises the processing of personal data.

Data Localisation Restrictions

As at the Update Date of this article, no data localisation restrictions on the grounds of public security have been identified in Malta. Such restrictions will be published here once and if reported.