All information here was borrowed from the GDPR website https://www.eugdpr.org
After four years of preparation and debate the GDPR was finally approved by the EU Parliament on 14 April 2016. It will enter in force 20 days after its publication in the EU Official Journal and will be directly application in all member states two years after this date. Enforcement date: 25 May 2018 - at which time those organizations in non-compliance will face heavy fines. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) replaces the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and was designed to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, to protect and empower all EU citizen's data privacy and to reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy.