Contrary to what the name suggests, data protection does not serve to protect data, but to protect individuals from misuse of their data. Nevertheless, data protection is often seen as a bureaucratic obstacle to be circumvented if it cannot be ignored. Spurred on by the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), however, data protection has taken on a much higher profile in the EU and beyond since 2018. This also has implications for software development and IT, on the one hand in their role as shapers of data protection and on the other hand as they themselves are affected by data protection. This chapter provides an introduction to the basic ideas of data protection and the role and responsibility of software development and IT in this context. This introduction is supplemented by an initial overview of the relevant legal foundations, in particular the GDPR, various national legislations and also some other reference models for data protection.