New Data Protection Law for Costa Rica
This post was written by Cynthia O'Donoghue and Katalina Chin.
On 7 September 2011 the Executive in Costa Rica published Law No. 8968 on the Protection of the Person concerning the Treatment of Personal Data. Along with Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina, it is now the seventh country in Central and Latin America to enact data protection laws. Following the European model for the protection of personal data, the new Costa Rican law incorporates a consent requirement for the processing of personal data, establishes a new supervisory authority to be known as Prodhab which will have sanctioning powers and also sets up a registration process for public or private entities processing personal data. This alert is of potential interest to all corporations doing business in Costa Rica.
