SPK‑N: Preli­mi­na­ry con­sul­ta­ti­on of the DSG completed

The Natio­nal Council’s Sta­te Poli­cy Com­mis­si­on (SPK‑N) has com­ple­ted the preli­mi­na­ry con­sul­ta­ti­on of the revi­sed FDPA (17.059) was com­ple­ted. In the over­all vote, howe­ver, the bill was appro­ved by a very nar­row mar­gin of 9 votes to 9 with 7 abst­en­ti­ons and a casting vote by the Pre­si­dent, which is not sur­pri­sing given the col­li­si­on of the inte­rests of con­su­mer pro­tec­tion, trade and industry.

The Media release of the SPK‑N Accor­ding to the report, the ver­si­on pas­sed for the atten­ti­on of the Natio­nal Coun­cil con­ta­ins the fol­lo­wing main points:

• The FDPIC should no lon­ger be elec­ted by the Fede­ral Coun­cil, but by the Fede­ral Assembly.
• The­re will be a right to Data por­ta­bi­li­ty has been intro­du­ced. Accor­din­gly, any per­son can request a ser­vice pro­vi­der to hand over per­so­nal data rela­ting to him or her in a com­mon for­mat so that this data can be trans­fer­red to ano­ther ser­vice pro­vi­der. A mino­ri­ty appar­ent­ly wan­ted to (via the GDPR Fur­ther­mo­re) that this right applies to all per­so­nal data and not only to tho­se which the per­son has disclosed.
• Data about Social assi­stance mea­su­res are no lon­ger par­ti­cu­lar­ly wort­hy of pro­tec­tion becau­se it may be in the inte­rest of con­trac­tors, pro­vi­ders, or the public to know whe­ther a per­son is recei­ving social assistance.Also, data on uni­on acti­vi­ties should no lon­ger fall into this cate­go­ry, but instead gene­tic data.
• Theo­re­ti­cal­ly explo­si­ve, prac­ti­cal­ly pro­ba­b­ly less so: For­eign com­pa­nieswho offer ser­vices in Switz­er­land are to be regi­stered in to the FDPA hold and a Repre­sen­ta­ti­ve in Switzerland.
• The sepa­ra­te regu­la­ti­on for hand­ling the data decea­sed per­sons should dele­ted be
• By a clear majo­ri­ty, the com­mis­si­on wants to appro­ve the Fede­ral Council’s pro­po­sed Sanc­tion system adopt, i.e. a system of cri­mi­nal sanc­tions against natu­ral per­sons (name­ly exe­cu­ti­ves). Legal per­sons should be able to be sanc­tion­ed only in cer­tain cases. Howe­ver, the Com­mis­si­on has adopted a postu­la­te (18.4100), which ins­tructs the Fede­ral Coun­cil to exami­ne the gene­ral intro­duc­tion of pecu­nia­ry admi­ni­stra­ti­ve sanc­tions in Swiss law. The maxi­mum amount of the fines should be CHF 250,000 remain. Two mino­ri­ties are in favor of hig­her fines.
• The revi­sed FDPA should two years after expiry of the refe­ren­dum peri­od come into force.
• The Com­mis­si­on has sub­mit­ted seve­ral moti­ons cal­ling on the Fede­ral Coun­cil to com­ple­te the data pro­tec­tion pro­vi­si­ons in other fede­ral laws (19.3960, 19.3961, 19.3962, 19.3963, 19.3964, 19.3965).