The Law on the Protection of Personal Data provides special protection for certain categories of personal data, such as:

  • racial background;
  • religious belief;
  • political opinion;
  • nationality;
  • membership in a trade union organization;
  • health status data;
  • biometric data; and
  • data on sex life.

The special protection enjoyed by these categories of personal data results from the fact that their abuse and unauthorized use and disclosure violate other fundamental human rights, not only the right to protection of personal data.

The processing of special categories of personal data is prohibited, except:

  1. when the subject of personal data has given express consent to the processing of that personal data for one or more specific purposes;
  2. when the processing is necessary for the purposes of fulfilling the obligations and exercising the special rights of the controller or the subject of personal data in the field of employment and social security and in social protection regulations, if this is allowed by law or collective agreement;
  3. when the processing is necessary to protect the essential interests of the subject of the personal data or of another natural person;
  4. when the processing is carried out within the legitimate activities with appropriate safeguards by a certain foundation, association or any other non-profit organization with a political, philosophical, religious or trade union purpose and provided that the processing concerns only members of these organizations or their former members or to persons who have regular contacts with them in connection with their purposes and provided that the personal data are not disclosed outside that organization without the consent of the subjects of the personal data;
  5. when the processing concerns personal data, which have apparently been published publicly by the subject of the personal data;
  6. when the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims or whenever the courts are acting within their jurisdiction;
  7. when the processing is necessary for reasons of public interest based on the law in proportion to the purpose and respecting the essence of the right to protection of personal data, as well as providing appropriate and specific measures to protect the fundamental rights and interests of the subject of personal data;
  8. when the processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the employee’s work capacity, medical diagnosis, provision of health or social care or treatment or for the purposes of managing health or social care services and systems;
  9. when the processing is necessary for the purposes of public interest in the field of public health;
  10. when the processing is necessary for the purposes of archiving in the public interest, for the purposes of scientific and historical research or statistical purposes.

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