ABSTRACT
Abstract: This chapter provides a description of the Norwegian Personal Data Act, which came into force on 1 January 2001. It then refers the Norwegian system with a Data Protection Official or Ombudsman for Privacy in Research, arguing its advantages in serving the interests in privacy as well as research. In the Autumn of 1995, the Ministry of Justice appointed a committee to review the need for amendments to the Data Registers Act of 1978. The Data Protection Committee's terms of reference contained strong signals towards, and consequently expectations of, an EC-compatible Act on the protection of privacy. When the Personal Data Act was implemented in January 2001, Norwegian researchers had been living with one of the most restrictive privacy Acts in Europe, and a requirement of prior checking for more or less all research (registers) based on personal data, for more than twenty years.
