At the end of February 2024, the current government proposed an amendment to the Real Estate Cadastre Act (Act No. 162/1995 Coll. on the Real Estate Cadastre and on the Registration of Ownership and Other Rights to Real Estate), which would regulate access to information. The cadastre contains personal data of the persons concerned, and at present, anyone can access it anonymously, which is perceived as a major problem from the point of view of personal data protection. What should the amendment bring and how should it help protect personal data?
The amendment to the law is currently in the preparatory phase and comments should begin in June 2024. This amendment should mainly address:
- legislative and technical shortcomings,
- types of land,
- conditions for electronic submissions,
- clarify the legal regulation of decisions on the subject of registration in the cadastre,
- simplify the proposal for registration submitted in paper form,
- exclude a reduction in the administrative fee for submitting a notification of a proposal for registration,
- conditions for entry in the real estate cadastre in connection with regulations governing international inheritance,
- in connection with new building legislation, regulate the registration of the boundaries of built-up areas of municipalities in the real estate cadastre,
- the time limits for keeping files in the real estate cadastre.
Another proposal in the amendment is the introduction of a login system for the cadastre website. This would mean that people would only be able to access the data on the website as registered users with a chip ID card. As stated in thepreliminary information on the amendment, the amendment is a response to the current situation, namely the increasing crime in the area of misuse of personal data of persons who have rights to real estate and whose data is therefore necessarily stored in the land registry.
How does the real estate cadastre work at present?
The real estate cadastre, with its official website ZBGIS, is a very well-designed online tool that is relatively easy to use. Based on the address, you can find the exact parcel or property. The cadastre will then provide you with an extract from the title deed containing all the essential information and display a map showing the location of the property. The extract from the title deed contains all the necessary information about the land (parcel), the buildings located on the land, the owners, and any encumbrances on the land. The personal data of the owners is processed to the extent of their first name, surname, maiden name, title, address (or temporary address) and date of birth. All this information is currently freely accessible to everyone. After the amendment to the law, this should change and it will no longer be possible to access this data without registering with ZBGIS.
At present, it is possible to comment on the draft law and send suggestions and proposals. Such a proposal was also sent by the Slovensko Digital platform, which strongly disagrees with the amendment and sees no justification for it. The first problem is the reason for introducing registration on the website. The government justifies this with increasing crime in this area and data abuse, but this increase has not been proven in any way by statistics or other data. Slovakia Digitalcalls for proof of data misuse in relation to legitimate data processing. The platform also points out that other public websites, such as the Slovak Commercial Register or the Register of Financial Statements, process personal data that is available to everyone anonymously, without the need to register on the website. Since the websites operate on a similar principle, only providing different information (different scope of data), it is not entirely clear why the land registry should operate on the principle of authentication, i.e., logging in with an ID card. Should the right to publicly available information be preserved for such websites? By logging in, the system automatically knows who searched for the information, meaning they are no longer anonymous. At the same time, however, the amendment wants to provide property owners with information about who searched for their property in the land registry. How will property owners handle this data?
Some European Union countries have introduced a fee for obtaining complete information, thereby removing the need for registration. Anyone who actually needs the data can request it electronically or in paper form for a small fee.
So what will the amendment bring and what could it cause?
The main goal of the amendment is to prevent unauthorized access to and processing of property owners' data. In this case, the main issue is the scope of the data, which will not ultimately change, only access will be restricted. Restricted access to data will remain public for everyone without restriction. For complete data, registration on the cadastre website using a chip ID card is required. However, not everyone currently has such a card, so access is completely impossible for people without a chip. By creating a registration system, the land registry processes the personal data of citizens who have registered and is required to do so by law.
However, the biggest problem is the provision of data to property owners. Won't this actually turn the problem of data misuse against those who search for information in the land registry? In many situations, the register has been used by journalists to identify ownership relationships arising from illegal activities, but also by ordinary citizens to find out who owns the land next to them if they want to buy it.
This fact must be handled with caution, as this data processing must comply with the Personal Data Protection Act No. 18/2018 Z. z. and the GDPR. If the data provided by the owners is about people who are viewing their land, they automatically become recipients of personal data (or third parties). As they will have access to the data of the persons concerned, they are obliged to handle it in accordance with all the rights of the persons concerned, including the right to erasure or restriction of processing and all other rights. At the same time, the extent to which this data will be provided is not precisely defined.
The Office for Personal Data Protection has expressed a positive opinion on the introduction of registration on the website, but has not commented on the issue of processing the data of those registering. What it should really focus on is the purpose for which the data will be processed. The law sets out six types of lawfulness that determine the conditions under which data may be processed. At the same time, it should also focus on the scope of the data processed, which should not be broader than the data published in the land register. It is necessary to carefully consider the extent to which it is necessary and appropriate to make this data available to owners at all.
The amendment raises many questions and issues that need to be considered and discussed before it is adopted, so that it does not ultimately lead to even more inconsistencies.
SOURCES
Legislative process - SLOV-LEX
