EU Says Data-Protection Reform to Be Published by End of January

European Union plans to overhaul the region’s 16-year-old data-protection rules will be published by the end of the month, an EU spokesman said.

“The data-protection reform is well on track for adoption by the commission by the end of January,” said Matthew Newman, a spokesman for the EU’s Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding.

The bill will include stricter sanctions and equip national data-protection authorities with powers to levy fines of as much as 1 million euros ($1.3 million), or 5 percent of a company’s annual sales, according to an early draft of the rules obtained by Bloomberg News last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Aoife White in Brussels at awhite62@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net.