1In order to prevent creating a serious risk of circumvention, the protection of natural persons should be technologically neutral and should not depend on the techniques used. 2The protection of natural persons should apply to the processing of personal data by automated means, as well as to manual processing, if the personal data are contained or are intended to be contained in a filing system. 3Files or sets of files, as well as their cover pages, which are not structured according to specific criteria should not fall within the scope of this Regulation.