Digitalisation initiatives underestimate the need for privacy, transparency and the rule of law
Bern, 25.06.2024 - In his latest activity report, the Commissioner notes that the importance of upholding privacy protection, the transparency principle and the rule of law are often underestimated and therefore not incorporated early enough into the planning of digital transformation projects. This is creating otherwise avoidable delays.
In the course of his supervisory activities, the Commissioner is increasingly confronted with the argument that digital transformation projects are in line with the latest technological developments and therefore do not require any special justification or restrictions in terms of purpose and scope. However, failure to provide adequate justification for intrusion into the privacy of those concerned can lead to project delays:
- One example is the proposed introduction of a register of beneficial owners of legal entities as a means of combating crime. In this case, the FDPIC urged the administration, without success, to formulate the purpose of the register exhaustively in the law and to justify with the necessary clarity in the dispatch to Parliament the numerous online accesses to the register by public authorities. This project now risks being held up in Parliament over the failure to sufficiently justify the invasion of registrants' privacy.
- A similar situation exists for plans to link the cantonal police systems at national level via a query platform operated with the federal government's participation. Despite the urgency of this project, it is still unclear what the federal government's involvement will entail and what infrastructure it intends to provide for cantonal tasks, which cantonal citizen data the federal police authorities will have access to and when the federal government plans to initiate which legislative projects. The Commissioner expects the federal government to provide a project plan to allow for assessing the legal implications and risks of the entire project for the protection of Swiss citizens' privacy. If these fundamental issues are not clarified soon, this project could also be delayed.
- Digital projects by private companies are also experiencing avoidable delays. For example, US firm Meta recently announced that it will soon be using adult user data to train its AI technology. However, by failing to consider the implications on user privacy in good time, Meta has been forced to abandon its plans in the EU, the EEA and – as expressly confirmed to the FDPIC – Switzerland too.
Principle of transparency
The Commissioner also identified a need within the Federal Administration to improve the creation and digital management of official documents. In order to be able to deal promptly with the growing number of requests for access to documents under the Freedom of Information Act in the current reporting year, the federal authorities should increasingly be able to make such documents accessible by means of simple electronic procedures and, if necessary, automatically redact the content.Also during the reporting period, attempts have continued in parts of the Federal Administration to exclude certain government activities completely or partially from the scope of the Freedom of Information Act and, in doing so, undermine the paradigm shift from the principle of secrecy to one of transparency, which is embraced by the majority of federal employees, by imposing bureaucratic obstacles.
Address for enquiries
Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), Tel. +41 58 462 99 31, info@edoeb.admin.ch
Publisher
Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner
https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/en/home.html
