Take-Aways (AI)
  • SPK-SR recom­mends adop­ting the Fede­ral Coun­cil and Natio­nal Coun­cil defi­ni­ti­on of gene­tic data.
  • High-risk pro­fil­ing is defi­ned on a risk basis and is based on the per­so­na­li­ty pro­fi­le of the appli­ca­ble law.
  • Maxi­mum age for cre­dit­wort­hi­ness data: SPK-SR pro­po­ses five years; mino­ri­ty demands ten years or unli­mi­t­ed regi­ster data.

The Sta­te Poli­cy Com­mit­tee of the Coun­cil of Sta­tes (SPK-SR) deli­be­ra­ted on May 18, 2020 and adopted its pro­po­sals, which the Coun­cil of Sta­tes will dis­cuss in the sum­mer ses­si­on 2020 (cur­rent flag).

The SPK-SR makes the fol­lo­wing pro­po­sals (cf. also the Report on the items still out­stan­ding in the pro­ce­du­re for the recon­ci­lia­ti­on of dif­fe­ren­ces):

  • Con­cept of gene­tic data: like the Fede­ral Coun­cil (which is also what the Natio­nal Coun­cil wants);
  • Pro­fil­ing with high riskHere, the SPK-SR pro­po­ses the fol­lo­wing legal defi­ni­ti­on (which would be a sim­pli­fi­ca­ti­on com­pared to the pro­po­sal of the Coun­cil of Sta­tes last rea­ding, which would still have work­ed with two stan­dard examp­les;1 at the same time, this would in effect rein­tro­du­ce the con­cept of a per­so­na­li­ty profile:

    Pro­fil­ing that ent­ails a high risk to the per­so­na­li­ty or fun­da­men­tal rights of the data sub­ject by lea­ding to a Lin­king data leads, which have a Assess­ment of essen­ti­al aspects of the per­so­na­li­ty of a natu­ral person.

  • Cre­dit checkThe SPK-SR also wants to limit the maxi­mum age of raw data to 5 years (Fede­ral Coun­cil and Coun­cil of Sta­tes in first rea­ding: 5 years; Natio­nal Coun­cil: 10 years). A mino­ri­ty of the SPK-SR wan­ted to set the maxi­mum age at ten years and to abo­lish it for data from public regi­sters (which would make sen­se: the data can be obtai­ned anew, which would have to trig­ger the maxi­mum peri­od anew).

For this the Media release:

Fol­lo­wing the second dis­cus­sion of the total revi­si­on of the Data Pro­tec­tion Act, the Sta­te Poli­cy Com­mit­tee of the Coun­cil of Sta­tes (SPK‑S) is asking its Coun­cil to join the Natio­nal Coun­cil on seve­ral points. The Natio­nal Council’s appeal also did not go unhe­ard when it came to the defi­ni­ti­on of pro­fil­ing, as the SPK‑S unani­mously came out in favor of a com­pro­mi­se solu­ti­on on this point. This solu­ti­on con­firms the risk-based approach, but cla­ri­fi­es the defi­ni­ti­on of high-risk pro­fil­ing to the effect that it is now based on the defi­ni­ti­on of per­so­na­li­ty pro­fil­ing in cur­rent law. In the eyes of the Com­mis­si­on, this enshri­nes exact­ly the level of exi­sting law and thus crea­tes legal certainty.

The Com­mis­si­on also pro­po­ses, by 7 votes to 3 with 1 abst­en­ti­on, that data used to assess a person’s cre­dit­wort­hi­ness should not be older than five years. A mino­ri­ty would like to extend this peri­od to 10 years with the Natio­nal Coun­cil and, in addi­ti­on, allow data from public regi­sters for an unli­mi­t­ed period.