Chapter 1 · General Provisions

Article 2Material scope

All 99 Articles Chapter 1: General Provisions

Defines what kinds of processing the GDPR applies to — broadly, the automated or structured processing of personal data — and the narrow activities it does not cover.

Key points

  • Applies to wholly or partly automated processing, and to manual processing of data held in a filing system.
  • Does not apply to purely personal/household activity, or to law-enforcement and national-security processing covered by other instruments.
Read the official text on EUR-Lex

Related articles

Learn the context

These summaries are a plain-English orientation only and are not a substitute for the official text of the Regulation or for legal advice.

Need to apply Article 2?

Our data-protection lawyers turn the text into a plan.

Talk to a lawyer