Abstract

The article presents results of the research study ‘Access to data protection remedies in EU Member States’ published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in January 2014. That study compared the existing personal data protection measures in the 28 Member States of the European Union and the information gathered during the interviews conducted inter alia with the victims of personal data breaches in 16 countries. The study identified the most serious barriers for effective data protection, such as low social awareness as regtards available legal instruments, limited access to professional legal aid and insufficient competences of domestic data protection authorities. The article outlines FRA’s recommendations to improve the redress mechanisms and analyses them in the context of the planned UE data protection reform. The articles focuses also on specific findings of the study related to the situation Poland.