A draft version of the new EU General Data Protection Regulation is apparently already in circulation ahead of the expected publication date of the end of January 2012. Of interest to colleges and universities is the report that this currently includes a new definition of consent to processing which involves the requirement for consent to be explicit. It is currently proposed that the new legislation will be a Regulation, which means it will be directly applicable in UK law unlike the current Data Protection Directive which is implemented in EU states by further national legislation (The Data Protection Act 1998 in the case of the UK).
JISC Legal will provide further information once the official draft regulation is available, meantime further details of the leaked draft are available from the Bird & Bird website.