The threshold for small companies to appoint a data protection officer will be raised from 10 to 20 employees after a law passed in the German parliament on Friday.
"The German Association of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (DMB) takes a very positive view of the German government's commitment to a more SME-friendly data protection regulation," Marc Tenbieg, managing director of the association told Xinhua on Friday.
Particularly for smaller companies in Germany, the requirement to have a data protection officer could be "a great burden as there is often a lack of personnel," Tenbieg noted.