If your group operates in both the EU and Türkiye, your data protection officer faces a frustrating reality: KVKK and GDPR look like the same regulation but are operationalised differently. Most controls overlap; a handful diverge enough to create compliance gaps if you assume "GDPR-compliant equals KVKK-compliant." This cheat sheet maps the differences onto ERP system controls so your group privacy programme actually covers the Türkiye subsidiary.
The 5-minute summary
| Topic | KVKK (Türkiye) | GDPR (EU) |
|---|---|---|
| Legal basis | Law No. 6698 (2016) | Regulation 2016/679 (2018) |
| Regulator | KVKK Authority (Ankara) | National DPAs (DSB, CNIL, etc.) |
| Registration | VERBİS (mandatory above thresholds) | None (accountability principle) |
| Cross-border transfer | Adequacy decision, appropriate safeguards (standard contract notified to the Authority) or limited exceptions | Adequacy decisions + SCCs + DPF |
| Breach notification | 72 hours to the KVKK Board; data subjects as soon as possible | 72 hours to DPA |
| DPO | No DPO role; a contact person is named in VERBİS | Required in the cases listed in Article 37 |
| Right to erasure | Article 7 ("destruction") | Article 17 ("erasure") |
| Maximum fine | Up to ₺17.09M per violation (2026) | Up to €20M or 4% global turnover |
| Children's data | No specific age | 16 (national variations) |
The principles (lawfulness, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity, accountability) are functionally identical. The operational differences are where ERPs trip up.
VERBİS, an obligation specific to Türkiye
There is no GDPR equivalent. VERBİS (Veri Sorumluları Sicili) is a public register where data controllers above certain thresholds must list:
- Categories of personal data processed
- Purposes
- Data subject groups
- Storage periods
- Recipients (including foreign recipients)
- Technical and administrative measures
If you process Turkish citizen data and have employees ≥50 OR annual financial balance ≥₺100 million, you must register. Foreign companies processing Turkish citizen data must register regardless of size. Your ERP should help you generate and maintain the inventory that feeds VERBİS, because manually rebuilding it every year is painful.
ERP control: Module that maintains a per-table data inventory with category, retention period and lawful basis. Birasyo ships a KVKK inventory module with VERBİS-format export.
Cross-border data transfer
GDPR allows transfers to "adequate" countries (UK, Switzerland, Japan, etc.) and to the US under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF). KVKK's transfer rules were rewritten by Law No. 7499, in force since 1 June 2024, and now work in three tiers:
- Adequacy decision by the KVKK Board. At the time of writing the Board has not declared any country adequate, so this route is not available in practice.
- Appropriate safeguards. The most common one is the standard contract published by the Board. It is signed without changes and notified to the Authority within 5 business days of signature. Binding corporate rules and an undertaking approved by the Board are the other options.
- Exceptions for occasional transfers, such as explicit consent. Since 1 September 2024 explicit consent no longer covers regular, repeated transfers.
Practical impact: A US-headquartered group that routinely sends Türkiye payroll data to a US-based HRIS needs a standard contract notified to the Authority, or another safeguard. Employee consent is not enough for a recurring transfer. Hosting in the EU does not remove the requirement, because a server anywhere outside Türkiye counts as a transfer abroad.
ERP control: Configurable data residency. Microsoft Azure does not operate a Türkiye region; Birasyo is hosted in Microsoft Azure West Europe (Netherlands) by default and provides a private-deployment option with a Turkish hosting provider for customers needing in-country residency.
Audit trail expectations
GDPR demands "appropriate technical measures" but is technology-neutral. KVKK Authority guidance (especially after several major fines) has been increasingly specific:
- Immutable audit log showing who accessed personal data, when, from which IP
- Justification field for sensitive-data access (health, biometric, criminal)
- Quarterly access reviews with documented sign-off
ERP control: Every read/write of sensitive fields (national ID, IBAN, health data) logged with user, timestamp, IP, justification. Logs must be tamper-evident and retained for at least 5 years.
Right to erasure
GDPR's "right to erasure" allows refusal where data is needed for legal claims, public interest or freedom of expression. KVKK is stricter on the timeline (within 30 days) but allows refusal where:
- Processing is required by law (tax records: 5 years; e-Ledger: 10 years)
- Public health or safety
- Statistics or research after anonymisation
Practical pattern: When a customer requests erasure, your ERP should anonymise (replace name/email/phone with hashes) while retaining transactional records the tax law mandates. Hard delete is rarely the right answer.
ERP control: Erasure workflow that anonymises configurable fields per role, leaving foreign-key relationships intact for accounting integrity.
The 5 things most ERPs get wrong
- Treating audit log as opt-in: should be on by default, not a paid add-on.
- No KVKK inventory module: leaving you to maintain a separate spreadsheet.
- No data subject request workflow: every request handled by email creates risk.
- No anonymisation patterns: only hard delete, which breaks accounting.
- No VERBİS export: you rebuild the registration form annually by hand.
Where Birasyo lands
- KVKK inventory module (auto-generated VERBİS-format export)
- Data subject request workflow (intake, triage, response within 30 days)
- Configurable anonymisation per data category
- Immutable audit log with 5-year minimum retention
- Data residency: Microsoft Azure West Europe (Netherlands) by default, private deployment in Türkiye on request
- DPA template in EN + TR for both customer (KVKK) and EU partner (GDPR) signatures
Testing your ERP
KVKK and GDPR overlap on most points. The points that differ (VERBİS, cross-border transfer rules, audit-log specificity, anonymisation expectations) are exactly where ERPs that "tick the GDPR box" fail Turkish inspections. Test your ERP against each of the controls above, not against marketing claims.
Want the same overview for your specific configuration? Book a compliance-focused demo and we'll walk through your group's data flow and flag the gaps.
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