Crime of providing, distributing or acquiring personal data unlawfully (Turkish Criminal Code article 136)

The adventure of protecting personal data has a history of fifty years. With the constitutional amendment made in our country in 2010, the right to protection of personal data was evaluated as a constitutional right with the paragraph added to the 20th article of the Constitution. With the entry into force of the Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698, a new stage has been entered in the protection of personal data. In this way, a framework regulation has been created to protect personal data within the scope of private law. One of the methods of effective protection of personal data is to criminalize attacks and violations against personal data and to impose criminal sanctions in response to these crimes. In this context, the crime of illegally giving, disseminating or seizing personal data is regulated in Article 136 of the Turkish Penal Code No. 5237. The subject of the crime is personal data. Personal data is defined as any information belonging to a natural person whose identity is determined or identifiable. The acts of giving, disseminating or seizing personal data against personal data constitute the crime of illegally giving, disseminating or seizing personal data. In this study, the crime of illegally giving, disseminating or seizing personal data, which is regulated in the Turkish Penal Code for the protection of personal data, has been examined. Structural elements of the crime type are discussed. Keywords: unlawful, disseminating, giving, personal data, seizing,