The data subject is any natural person whose personal data are processed, regardless of whether that person is an EU citizen or not. The General Data Protection Regulation[1] regulates several rights of the data subject that can be exercised directly with the controller (the entity that processes his/her personal data).
Example: If a data subject is requesting a copy of his or her personal data processed through video surveillance at the entrance of a shopping mall with 30 000 visitors per day, the data subject should specify when he or she passed the monitored area within approximately a one-hour-timeframe. If the controller still processes the material a copy of the video footage should be provided. If other data subjects can be identified in the same material then that part of the material should be anonymised (for example by blurring the copy or parts thereof) before giving the copy to the data subject that filed the request.[2]
Example: The company maintains a telephone directory of all its employees containing the name, surname and work telephone number of each employee. The employee A noticed there is an error in the telephone directory for her surname, because the company added the suffix “-ová” to her surname. This employee can exercise her right to rectify the inaccurate personal data with the employer.
Example: A convenience store is having trouble with vandalism in particular on its exterior and is therefore using video surveillance outside of their entrance in direct connection to the walls. A passer-by requests to have his personal data erased from that very moment. The controller is obliged to respond to the request without undue delay and at the latest within one month. Since the footage in question does no longer meet the purpose for which it was initially stored (no vandalism occurred during the time the data subject passed by), there is at the time of the request, no legitimate interest to store the data that would override the interests of the data subjects. The controller needs to erase the personal data.
Example: The saver (data subject) notices that the supplementary pension company (SPC) registered a contribution lower that that deducted from the saver´s payment in June. He exercises his right to rectification of the inaccurate data with SPC and at the same time, as long as the controller complies with such right, the saver also exercises the right to restrict the processing.
Example: As an example, the titles of books purchased by an individual from an online bookstore, or the songs listened to via a music streaming service are examples of personal data that are generally within the scope of data portability, because they are processed on the basis of the performance of a contract to which the data subject is a party.[4]
Example: The consumer orders clothes from an online store (e-shop). Based on this order, the online store will start sending her a newsletter with new offers and promotions to the e-mail address provided by the consumer as a contact information for the purposes of processing the order. The consumer does not want to receive such e-mails, so she exercises her right to object to the online store. As the online store sends the newsletters based on a legitimate interest, it is obliged to stop processing the e-mail address for this purpose.
Example: A business advertises an open position. As working for the business in question is popular, the business receives tens of thousands of applications. Due to the exceptionally high volume of applications, the business may find that it is not practically possible to identify fitting candidates without first using fully automated means to sift out irrelevant applications. In this case, automated decision-making may be necessary in order to make a short list of possible candidates, with the intention of entering into a contract with a data subject.[5]
Example: A music festival sells tickets through an online ticket agent. With each online ticket sale, consent is requested in order to use contact details for marketing purposes. To indicate consent for this purpose, customers can select either No or Yes. The controller informs customers that they have the possibility to withdraw consent. To do this, they could contact a call centre on business days between 8am and 5pm, free of charge. The controller in this example does not comply with article 7(3) of the General Data Protection Regulation. Withdrawing consent in this case requires a telephone call during business hours, this is more burdensome than the one mouse-click needed for giving consent through the online ticket vendor, which is open 24/7.[6]
you have the right to lodge a complaint to the Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic to initiate the personal data protection proceeding.
In case you were unable to exercise your rights with the controller, it is necessary to state the reasons due to which it was not possible to do so.
[1] 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)
[5] Guidelines on Automated individual decision-making and Profiling for the purposes of Regulation 2016/679, p. 23
[6] Guidelines on consent, p. 24