On 12 April 2019, After the adoption of the text of the bill without amendments by the Senate, the President was given the text to sign. Act dated 4 April 2019 on the amendment of the Civil Records Act.
Amendment Act dated 24 September 2010 on population records (Journal of Laws of 2010, item 1427, i.e. Journal of Laws of 2018, item 1382, hereinafter referred to as ‘the PESEL Act’) provides for a change in the jurisdiction of the authorities responsible for making available individual data from the population records to public entities and private entities.
Current legal status
To date, data from the PESEL register at central level, according to Article 50(1)(2) PESEL Act, made available to the Minister competent for Home Affairs, drawing data from the national PESEL register. On the other hand, data from the PESEL register at local level, according to Article 50(2), provide data from the registers of residents.
The Act specifies two groups of entities entitled to request access to data. Data from the PESEL register and resident registers to the extent necessary to carry out their statutory tasks shall be made available to public entities which in a way exhaustive specified under Article 46(1) PESEL Act.
This data could also be made available to private parties, after they had demonstrated a legal interest.
In addition, data may have been made available to organisational units, for research, statistical, public opinion polls if, after use, the data are subject to a modification which will not allow the identification of data subjects and other persons and organisational units to be established.
The last group was those entities that would demonstrate an actual interest in receiving the data, subject to the consent of the data subjects.
Legal status after the entry into force of the amendment of the PESEL Act
In a new state of the law, according to Article 50(1)(2) PESEL Act, PESEL registry data will be made available to the body of any municipality if the unit data is made available for the catalogue of public entities indicated under Article 46(1) PESEL Act and Article 46(2)(1)(3), i.e. persons and organisational units, if they show a legal interest and other persons and organisational units, if they demonstrate an actual interest in receiving the data, subject to the consent of the data subjects.
However, according to Article 47(1a) The PESEL Act added by the Amending Act, the application for the provision of individual data, may be submitted only to one body of any municipality.
The Home Minister will continue to make the unit data from the PESEL register available only until 30 April 2019, with the exception that any requests made before that date will continue to be examined by the Minister responsible for Home Affairs. On the other hand, on the day 1 May 2019 only those competent for the provision of individual data from the PESEL register will be the municipal authorities.
The Amending Act introduces an exception to the general principle of delocalisation of the process made available by data from the PESEL register, since the application can only be submitted to one municipality body.
In the opinion of the legislator, this solution is intended to prevent situations in which the applicant simultaneously directs the same application to more than one the municipality body. Such a solution should be evaluated positively if it actually reduces the number of requests for data from the population register.
Author:
Michał Skwarek - Council applicant in the legal department Russell Bedford Poland. Graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw.