The enforcement-structure of the new GDPR – National DPAs facing autonomy, hierarchy and cooperation

• Marcel Kaiser

The upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is supposed to be a necessary progress for the new challenges in the digital age. Individual rights meet compliance strategies and a supranational system of cooperation between European and national authorities. The essay examines the implemented multifaceted administrative structure that causes efficiencies and problems at the same time: can various hierarchical instruments and mixed administrative responsibilities contribute to a real enforcement-interplay? May authorities, companies and data subjects finally face a consistent transnational data protection in the future?