Transparency of public officers does not justify the interference in privacy of their spouses

The President of the Personal Data Protection Office has doubts concerning the overly broad scope of data supposed to be disclosed in statements of asset.

Mirosław Wróblewski, the President of the Polish SA, has concerns about the draft amendment to the Act on restrictions on conduct of business activities by persons performing public functions and certain other acts, which the Sejm (the lower chamber of the Polish Parliament) is working on. One of them concerns the draft's proposed obligation to disclose data on the spouse's separate asset of a person performing a public function.

According to the Polish SA, information about the financial situation of the spouse of a person performing a public function does not constitute information about that person's activities, but about the situation of a person in his or her family. It notes that this information, according to the draft, will become public. Therefore, according to the Personal Data Protection Office, the drafters should take into account the principle of data minimisation, as defined in the GDPR, the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, and analyse the issue in terms of demonstrating the necessity of obtaining and further processing such data.

Thus, in its comments on the draft act, the Polish SA recommends conducting a data protection impact assessment (in accordance with Article 35 of the GDPR), i.e. assessing the impact of the proposed regulation on personal data protection issues. This would make it easier for the drafter to conduct a test of the necessity of introducing certain solutions so as to create legal regulations with respect to the principles set forth in the General Data Protection Regulation.

There are also doubts about the time scope that, according to the draft, will have to be taken into account when disclosing data in the statement of asset, which is expected to be 10 years. The Polish SA also submitted its comments related to the retention period for this data in the Public Information Bulletin.

You may read the entire comments of the President of the Personal Data Protection Office to the proposed amendments in the document attached below (in Polish).