If you suspect that there was or that there is an infringement of your rights when your personal data were or are processed or if there was a violation to the Act No. 18/2018 Coll. on personal data protection and amending and supplementing certain Acts (herein after only the “Act. No. 18/2018 Coll.”) or the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (hereinafter only “the Regulation 2016/679”) you may submit a complaint to the Office to initiate the personal data protection proceeding.
The complaint to initiate proceeding
The complaint shall be submitted:
According to the sec. 100 para. 3 of the Act. No. 18/2018 Coll. the complaint to initiate proceeding shall contain:
The complaint shall be submitted in Slovak language (the official translation is not required). In accordance with the Act No. 270/1995 Coll. on the State Language of the Slovak Republic the public authorities and the natural persons are obliged to use the state language – Slovak in the official communication. The proceeding is performed and the decisions are issued exclusively in Slovak language.
The template of the complaint can be found here.
Postponing of the complaint
According to the sec. 100 para 5 of the Act. No. 18/2018 Coll. the Office shall postpone the complaint if
Petition
If the complaint is delivered to the Office by a person other than the data subject, the complaint is considered as a petition to initiate the proceedings without a complaint and the natural or legal person which has submitted the petition is not considered as a party to the proceeding. The Office shall notify the complainant about how the petition proceeds within 30 days from the date the petition is delivered to the Office. The Office shall review the petition within 30 days from the date of its delivery. If the petition is not postponed pursuant to the reasons stated in the sec. 100 para 5, the Office shall initiate the proceeding.
Proceeding based on the result of inspection and own initiative
The Office can initiate the proceedings upon its own initiative based on the results of the inspection according to the sec. 97 para. 2 in connection with sec. 100 para. 2 of the Act. No. 18/2018 Coll. which has identified any shortcomings; or based on its own findings during the supervision carried out over the compliance with the obligations laid down by the Act. No. 18/2018 Coll. or Regulation 2016/679.
Decision
If the Office identifies that rights of data subject were infringed or the failure to comply with obligations when processing personal data, in decision the Office particularly imposes the corrective measures and the period within which the corrective measures should be carried out. In decision the Office also imposes fines. If the infringement or the failure are not proven the Office shall suspend the proceedings.
Periods for the decision
The Office shall decide in the proceeding within 90 days from the day proceeding is initiated. In the reasonable cases this period is extended by Office, to a maximum of 180 days. The Office shall notify the parties of the proceeding about the extension in writing.
Appeal against the decision
The party to proceeding can lodge an appeal against the decision that has not entered into the force within the period of 15 days following the day of its delivery to the party. The appeal can be lodged to the Office in the same form as the complaint could be submitted.