On the question "What is data protection?", the European Data Protection Supervisor writes on his website:

Natural persons

The term "natural persons" is often used in connection with legal texts. This refers to individual "physical" people as holders of rights and obligations. In contrast, the term "legal person" describes a group of people or an organisation, such as companies, associations or foundations. Data protection therefore only protects people and not organisations. 

Personal data

Data protection is exclusively about data that relates to a person or was created by a person:

• Data ABOUT people: Everything that makes us distinguishable from others: our name, home address, date of birth, personal e-mail address, tax number, photos & videos on which we are depicted,...
  
• Data FROM people: Content of messages or data generated in the course of communication activities, such as IP addresses. 

Data protection has its origins in the right to privacy and therefore also includes the protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals. Data protection therefore seeks to protect our personal interests.

European General Data Protection Regulation

Data protection in the European Union is governed by the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It defines regulations and requirements for individuals, institutions and companies if they wish to process personal data. You can find the full text of the General Data Protection Regulation here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32016R0679&qid=1696939558510

Personal data may only be processed in accordance with defined principles. A company may only process our data if there is a clear legal basis for doing so. We must also be informed about who processes what information about us, when, for what purpose, who has access to this data and when the information will be deleted. These requirements are set out in the GDPR and are mandatory for every data processor.

Note!

	Data protection is about the "protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data". It is therefore not about protecting the data itself, but rather about protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of the natural persons behind this data.

Data protection with data security

Data protection is often confused or equated with data security. But even if the terms are similar, there is a big difference: 

• Data protection focuses on ensuring that processes for processing personal data are legally compliant. 
  
• Data security describes measures for the (technical) protection of all data against risks such as theft, manipulation or unauthorised access.

Of course, there are overlaps, but data protection focuses exclusively on the protection of natural persons, whereas data security also plays an important role in protecting business secrets, especially for companies and organisations.

 Source: https://www.dr-datenschutz.de/was-ist-datenschutz-begriff-und-geschichte/