Below, you find a selection of articles taken from the FDIPC's 22nd annual report. If you are interested in the complete version of the reports, please refer to the corresponding pages in German or French.
Vehicle video surveillance (dashcams)
The use of so-called dashcams is held to be an infringement of data protection rights, which is why they should not be used. We have published our explanatory notes on the subject. Continue...
Copyright protection in cyberspace
The amendments proposed by AGUR12 (the Copyright Working Group) are due to be introduced into the Swiss Federal Copyright Act. We shall be monitoring the legislative process and shall strive to ensure that privacy rights are not undermined. Continue...
Storing patients’ records in the Cloud
Doctors are increasingly interested in storing patients' records in the Cloud. In spite of the many advantages such a system may offer, it raises some very serious medical confidentiality issues which are covered by the Swiss criminal code. When the storage of patients' records is outsourced to a service provider, it is important that no third party is able to carry out any unjustified data processing of patient files. Continue...
Health questionnaires for job applicants
Under what conditions may employers ask job applicants to fill in a health questionnaire? We considered this question very carefully during the year under review, and our answers are detailed below. Continue...
Reference checks in conjunction with job applications
Our telephone advisory service received numerous calls from persons enquiring about reference checks carried out during the job application process. It became clear to us that the people had very little knowledge about job applicants' rights and how they can defend themselves against references that include information that is either untruthful or should not be disclosed. Continue...
Disclosure of membership data to insurance companies
During the year under review, a number of private individuals wrote to us asking whether clubs and federations were entitled to pass on membership data to their sponsors for advertising purposes. We will be writing to the federations and to the two principal sponsors in order to draw their attention to their legal obligations with regard to data protection regulations. Continue...
Consultations in respect of the automatic exchange of tax information
After the adoption of the international OECD standard for automatic exchange of financial account information in tax matters, we were asked to participate in the activities of the working groups set up by the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters (SIF). We took advantage of this consultation process to draw SIF's attention to the core issue of privacy rights. Continue...
Transferring pseudonymised bank customer data outside Switzerland
In 2013, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, FINMA, carried out a partial revision of its Circular - "Operational Risks - Banks". As part of the consultation process, we set out our position on the pseudonymisation of personal data and the associated consequences for the banking sector. Continue...
Freedom of information principle
According to the figures that have been communicated to us, the Federal authorities received a total of 575 requests for information (582 if we include the requests submitted to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office and to the parliamentary services, cf. Section 2.1.2 f). That is the highest number recorded since the Freedom of Information Act was adopted in 2006. The authorities granted full access in 297 cases, and partial access in 124 cases. On the other hand, access was refused in 122 cases. Moreover, 15 requests were withdrawn and 17 were still pending at the end of 2014. Continue...
Further information
Documents
Order
The complete annual report can be ordered in German and French from the BBL, Vertrieb Publikationen, 3003 Bern
Art. Nr. 410.021