MaltaData Protection Act, Chapter 586 of the Laws of Malta
In force since , effective .
A comprehensive regime rule binding public and private bodies.
- How the hook was established
- express
- What makes it apply
- Operator establishment, Market targeting, User location, Place of effect
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Establish a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Article 6 lawful basis before processing personal data of a person in Malta, including data collected by crawling.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text. Also read by: Information and Data Protection Commissioner (IDPC) (guidance, recorded ).
In the frameworks
- NIST Privacy Framework
- CT.PO-P1Policies, processes, and procedures for authorizing data processing (e.g., organizational decisions, individual consent), revoking authorizations, and maintaining authorizations are established and in place.
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Who enforces it
Settledness
- As of
- Guidance link
- https://idpc.org.mt/for-organisations/lawfulness-of-processing/
- Guidance body
- Information and Data Protection Commissioner (IDPC)
- Open questions
- Does a purely commercial interest meet the IDPC's statement that, to be legitimate under Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR, an interest 'must be compelling and beneficial to the society at large'?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
The Act supplies derogations, a consultation and prior authorisation step (Article 7), a limit on processing identity documents (Article 8), the Commissioner and the appeals tribunal. None of its provisions states a duty to create, keep or produce a log or record; the Act leaves the record of processing and breach documentation duties to Articles 30 and 33(5) of the Regulation.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Malta's private-sector regime is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) plus the Data Protection Act, Chapter 586 of the Laws of Malta, in force since , three days after the GDPR began to apply, supplying domestic derogations and procedural rules. Subsidiary Legislation 586.11 sets the digital age of consent at 13 (regulation 4). The Minister's power under Chapter 586's Article 33(g) allows a lower age than sixteen, but not below thirteen.
The Information and Data Protection Commissioner (IDPC) is the supervisory authority; Legal Notice 227 of 2025 also designates it the market surveillance authority for high-risk biometric systems used for law enforcement, border management and justice and democracy (regulation 3).
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or processes personal data.
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