European Data Protection Day

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Do you know that today we are celebrating the European Data Protection Day? It is to remind us how important it is to take care of our data both in private matters and in professional life. Of course, we should remember about protecting our identity every day, but a day like today is a good moment to remember what personal data is and how to avoid getting into trouble.

Let’s start with a little theory first.

According to Art. 6 sec. 1 of the Act of August 29, 1997 on the Protection of Personal Data (Journal of Laws of 2002, No. 101, item 926, as amended), personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.

An example of a single piece of information constituting a personal data is the PESEL number, which is an 11-digit numeric symbol that uniquely identifies a person. Individual general information, such as the address or the amount of remuneration are not a personal data. However, as a collection, they will constitute a personal data, as long as we can identify a specific person on their basis. Difficult? Maybe a little. That’s the reason why data protection officers have so much work to do 🙂

How to protect your document?

• Do not leave your ID card unattended.

• Only provide copies of your identity document to trusted institutions. If, for example, a bank requires it, add a note on the copy of the document for the purpose of making the photocopy. For example, “copy for the bank of 27 May 2021”.

• Do not post a scan of your ID card online or give your details to a stranger over the phone.

What to do if you lost your identity document?

We can reserve the lost document in:

• branch of the bank of which we are a client;

• 13 banks offer the service of restriction of documents of persons who are not the bank’s clients or do not have an account (the full list of banks is available at www.dokumenty reserved.pl);

• on the website of the Credit Information Bureau www.bik.pl after creating an account.

You should also reserve your child’s document.

And now we will scare you a bit, because the consequences of losing a document can be really unpleasant.

Possible consequences:

• breach of civil law contracts (e.g. with a mobile operator),

• extortion of credit,

• registering a false business,

• rental of equipment for the purpose of theft.

What to do if you found someone else’s document:

If an identity document is found, this document should be handed over immediately:

• an authority of any commune;

• the Police;

• other public administration body;

• a consular post of the Republic of Poland;

• the holder of the identity card, who in such a case is obliged to notify the indicated authorities about the loss of the identity card.

Source: https://www.gov.pl/web/mswia

Take care of your data!

The article was created thanks to Magda, our Personal Data Protection Inspector, who makes sure that the data of SOFTIQ employees is properly secured. Thank you!

This post is also available in: Polski (Polish)