Nataša Pirc Musar

Nataša Pirc Musar is our exclusively recommended Data Protection (GDPR) Law expert in Slovenia on the Advisory Excellence website. If you need assistance in this area, please contact Nataša directly using the contact details listed above.

Slovenia, a country in Central Europe, is known for its mountains, ski resorts and lakes. On Lake Bled, a glacial lake fed by hot springs, the town of Bled contains a church-topped islet and a cliffside medieval castle. In Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, baroque facades mix with the 20th-century architecture of native Jože Plečnik, whose iconic Tromostovje spans the tightly curving Ljubljanica River.

Nataša was born in 1968 in Ljubljana. After graduating from the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana in 1992, she passed the national bar examination in 1997. After completing her studies, she was employed for six years at the Slovenian national television station as a journalist and news presenter for the main news programme TV Dnevnik. Subsequently, she worked for five years as a news presenter on “24 ur”, the primary information programme of the largest commercial television broadcaster in Slovenia, POP TV.

She gained additional experience in journalism at CNN, and studied at the Media Department of Salford University in Manchester in the UK for two semesters. During her studies she did professional internships at BBC, Granada TV, Sky News, Reuters TV, and Border TV. She has also written newspaper articles and worked on radio.

Striving for new knowledge, in 2001 she moved to the financial sector, where she joined the largest Slovenian private financial corporation, Aktiva Group, as Head of Corporate Communications. In April 2003 she became the Director of the Training and Communications Centre of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia. On July 15 2004, the National Assembly elected her the second Slovenian Commissioner for Access to Public Information. She was nominated for this position by the President of the Republic of Slovenia. Since 31 December 2005, when the Office of the Commissioner for Access to Public Information merged with the Inspectorate for Personal Data Protection, Nataša Pirc Musar has held the office of Information Commissioner.

Upon the proposal of the President of the Republic Dr. Danilo Türk, on May 21 2009 the National Assembly elected Mrs. Pirc Musar to an additional five-year term as Information Commissioner. She began her new term of office on July 16 2009 and finished it on July 2014.

In October 2009, Nataša Pirc Musar was elected Vice President of the Europol Joint Supervisory Body, and in March 2013 President of the JSB Europol. Members of this supervisory authority are representatives of national supervisory authorities for the protection of personal data from all Europol member states; i.e. the EU Member States. In accordance with the Europol Convention, the mission of the joint supervisory authority is to conduct independent reviews of the activities of Europol in order to ensure that individual rights are not violated by the storage, processing, and use of data held by Europol. The joint supervisory authority monitors the permissibility of the further transfer of data originating from Europol.

On 9 December 2014 she took an oath as attorney at law at the Slovenian Bar Association. From the 1 January 2015 Nataša Pirc Musar is the director and owner of the Law Firm Pirc Musar.