Data protection

The new Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) in Switzerland comes into force on 1 September 2023 without a transition period. The regulations in the revised FADP are stricter compared to the current FADP. The data protection compliance requirements for companies are being increased and the governance structure must be adapted. Hardly any companies enjoy implementing data protection and nobody can comply with it completely. The data protection team from Balmer-Etienne shows you how you can cope well with the stricter and more demanding requirements in your company despite everything - comprehensively, promptly, and in a solution- and risk-oriented manner.

What is data protection?

Data protection aims to protect the personal rights of natural persons and their basic rights, namely the right to self-determination over their personal data. Companies which process such personal data themselves or through third parties are obliged to do this in a transparent manner. Processing includes all dealings with personal data, in particular the acquisition, storage, retention, use, modification, disclosure, archiving, deletion and destruction. In addition to compliance with the statutory processing principles, companies are particularly obliged to inform the persons concerned, to comply with their rights, to report in the event of a data leak and to adhere to regulations when forwarding personal data at home and abroad.

Deliberate non-compliance with these obligations is subject to sanctions. Natural persons acting on behalf of a company can be personally prosecuted with a fine of up to CHF 250,000.

We have compiled a Data Protection Guide for companies and a catalogue of measures for you.

Balance commercial success and data protection

The protection of personal data as well as the manufacturing and business secrets of the company and third parties by a robust data protection organisation and governance is decisive for the commercial success of a company. Damages to reputations are avoided and costs are saved. Our data protection team therefore does not advise you just in the area of data protection. Balmer-Etienne supports you in all data law issues, including protection of manufacturing and business secrets, aspects of data security on topics such as “ownership” of data and confidentiality agreements.

What are the Balmer-Etienne services in the area of data protection?

Benefit from the following Balmer-Etienne services in data protection law:

• Advice on the risk-based implementation of data protection in your company
• Showing the necessary information and documentation obligations
• Evaluating your risks in data protection
• Checking your conformity with data protection
• Creating privacy statements, order data processing contracts, consents, deletion concepts, guidelines, agreements such as Controller-to-Controller-agreements and instructions
• Employee data protection