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CONDITIONS FOR THE PROTECTION OF PRIVACY

Protection of personal data of our clients and other natural persons is of utmost importance to us. These conditions explain how we process personal data during the provision of legal services in our law firm NITSCHNEIDER & PARTNERS, advokátska kancelária, s. r. o., with the registered office at Cintorínska 3/A, 811 08 Bratislava, Company ID: 35 874 465 , registered in the Commercial Register of the District Court Bratislava I, Section: Sro, Insert No.: 36226/B (hereinafter referred to as “We” or “Us”). If you have any questions, you can contact us by telephone on tel. no.: +421 (2) 2092 1210, via e-mail at office@nitschneider.com or by mail at the address of our office. 

 

During the processing of personal data, we are primarily governed by European Parliament and Council Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and on repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Regulation on the protection of personal data) ("GDPR"), which also covers your rights as the data subject by the provisions of the Act on the protection of personal data that apply to Us (in particular the Art. 78), by the Act on the Legal Profession (in particular Art. 18 therein) as well as by other regulations. We adhere to the Code of Conduct adopted by the Slovak Bar Association ("SBA"), which further explains the processing of personal data by attorneys. You can familiarize yourself with the Code of Conduct of the SBA at www.sak.sk/gdpr.   

 

Why do we process personal data? 

  • Processing of personal data is necessary on our part in particular so that we can: 

  • provide legal services to our clients and to carry out legal profession;

  • fulfil various legal, professional and contractual obligations; and 

  • protect legitimate interests of Us, our clients and of other persons. 

 

For what purposes and on what legal ground do we process personal data?

What legitimate interests do we observe when processing personal data? 
 

In certain cases, we can process your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest or legitimate interest of third persons. For example, if you are our client, we can process some of your personal data, particularly your contact information, for marketing purposes and, in particular, for sending news from various legal areas, invitations to social events, conferences and other events, or as a reference to the legal services provided by Us. If you are a member of our staff, we can process some of your personal data for the purposes of presentation of our services, to ensure safety of our premises and technical means or for the provision of benefits. This does not mean, however, that we can use personal data for any activity. In the event that we want to use your personal data, we will conduct a test to determine whether your interests do not outweigh ours, or whether we would not disproportionately affect your fundamental rights and freedoms in this way.
 

If we process your personal data on the basis of a legitimate interest, you have the right to object to such processing of data about you. In such case, we shall suspend data processing and carefully conduct a comparative test of your interests, rights and freedoms with our own legitimate interests. Depending on the results of the test, we will decide whether we will stop processing your personal data. In any case, we will inform you about the outcome of your objections. 

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Who will have access to your personal data? 
 

We make the personal data of our clients and of other natural persons available only to the extent necessary and always secure those are received in confidence (e.g. by our employees, persons who we entrust to perform individual legal services, representing attorneys or co-advocates, our accounting or other advisors, Slovak Bar Association (e.g. in the event of disciplinary proceedings) or software equipment suppliers, or the support of our office, including employees of such persons. 
 

Even though we have a limited obligation to provide your personal data to public authorities due to maintaining of secrecy, we are obliged to thwart any commission of a criminal offense and we also have the obligation to communicate information in the field of prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism.

 

Which countries do we transfer your personal data to? 
 

We do not intend any cross-border transfer of your personal data to third countries outside the European Economic Area (the EU, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein). Transfer of personal data to third countries may be carried out only at the request of the client, in connection with the provision of legal services.

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What automated individual decisions do we make? 
 

Do not perform any automated individual decisions.
 

How long do we retain your personal data for? 
We keep your personal data until such time as necessary for the purpose for which those personal data are processed. For storing personal data, we are compliant with the recommended periods of retention in accordance with the Resolution of directors of the Slovak Bar Association no. 29/11/2011, e.g.: 

  • After being completely full, books of incoming and outgoing mail are stored by attorney for a period of ten years from the date of serving or dispatch of the last registered consignment within the book; 

  • Inventory list is archived during a ten year period following drawing up thereof;

  • Retention period of a client file is 10 years and shall run from the day on which all the conditions for archiving the file are met. 
     

Attorneys are subject to professional rules interpreting obligations of attorneys under the Act on the Legal Profession, according to which there are certain circumstances, which extend our retention periods for personal data or prevent us from discarding certain documents for obvious reasons. For example: 

  • Client file containing originals of documents submitted to attorney by the client cannot be discarded; 

  • It is not possible to discard protocols of client files and list of names therein;

  • We cannot discard client file or part thereof, which the attorney is obliged to hand over to a state archive; 

  • Client file cannot be discarded, in so far as any proceedings before Court, bodies of state administration, law enforcement authorities, or Slovak Bar Association is in progress, which is contextually linked with the contents of the client file or the content of which was the subject matter of any act or omission of an advocate in providing legal aid to the client. 

 

How do we obtain your personal data?

 

Provided you are already our client, in most cases we gather your personal data directly from you. In such case, obtaining your personal data is voluntary. Depending on the individual case, failure to provide personal information by the client may have an impact on our ability to provide high-quality legal services, or in exceptional cases, on our duty to refuse provision of legal advice. Personal data on our clients can also come from publicly available sources, from public authorities or from other persons. 
 

Provided you are not our client, the data about you (e.g. identification and correspondence data such as name, surname, date of birth, domicile, correspondence address, tel. no., email address, data concerning client’s entitlement or defending legal interest of the client such as the amount receivable, public-law liabilities, participation in business companies, information on legal relationship of the customer and counterparties, etc.) is frequently obtained from our clients or from other public or statutory resources, such as by requesting them from public authorities, extracting them from public registers, obtaining evidence in favour of the client and the like. In this case we may obtain data about you without informing you and also against your will on the basis of our legal entitlement and obligation to perform advocacy in accordance with the Act on the Legal Profession.

 

What are your rights as the data subject? 
 

As a client you have the right to request access to your personal data as well as rectification thereof. When we process personal data during the provision of legal services, as a client or another natural person (e.g. counterparty), you do not have the right to object to such processing under Art. 22 GDPR. Provided the personal data is relating to a client (regardless of whether the client is a legal or natural person), other persons do not have the right of access to such data or the portability right, because of our legal obligation of maintaining secrecy and of reference to Art. 15(4) GDPR, 20(4) GDPR and Art. 18(8) of the Act on the Legal Profession: "Attorney shall have no obligation to provide information about the processing of personal data, to allow access thereto or portability thereof according to the special regulation, provided this could lead to infringement of the attorney obligation to maintain secrecy under this Act." You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Office for the protection of personal data or the Slovak Bar Association at any time. 


Changes to the terms of protection of privacy 

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For us, protection of personal data is not a one-time issue. Information that we are obliged to provide to you due to our processing of personal data may be subject to change or may cease to be up to date. For this reason, we reserve the right to adapt these terms and conditions whenever and in any range. In the event that we change these conditions substantially, we will bring this to your attention e.g. by a general notification on this website or by specific notification delivered via email. 

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If we process data about you on the basis of your consent to process personal data, you shall have the right to repent your consent at any time. 
Regardless of that, you have the right to object at any time to processing of personal data on the basis of a legitimate or public interest, as well as for the purposes of direct marketing, including profiling.

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