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Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) · Chapter I · General provisions

Art. 3 · Territorial scope

Text

  1. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data in the context of the activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the Union, regardless of whether the processing takes place in the Union or not.

  2. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where the processing activities are related to:

(a)

the offering of goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the data subject is required, to such data subjects in the Union; or

(b)

the monitoring of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes place within the Union.

  1. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data by a controller not established in the Union, but in a place where Member State law applies by virtue of public international law.

Text: EUR-Lex, CELEX 32016R0679 (consolidated text with corrigenda).

Commentary

Territorial scope. Besides establishment in the EU, it also reaches controllers in third countries who offer goods or services to people in the EU or monitor their behaviour. The extraterritorial template later taken over by the AI Act in Art. 2.