Swiss proposal for new data protection law missing a data portability right

Switzerland is due to modernize its data protection law, in order to keep up with changes at the European level. The draft has just been released, and does not include a right to “data portability”, which is disappointing and problematic.

See the official page for the consultation, and particularly section 1.6.4 of the bericht/rapport.

I intend to comment officially and participate in the consultation. Maybe OpenData.ch, the Swiss chapter of Open Knowledge, can participate?

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Preliminary comment: the rejection is based on three arguments, all very weak:

  • that it requires cooperation between data controllers (not really true for portability, and the right to portability could be weakened to a right of copy to weaken that concern);
  • that it is mainly meant to create economic competition between data controllers, and not meant to protect personality (ignores that winner-take-all effects create externalities, including on other fundamental rights);
  • that the costs of compliance would be large (Swiss companies offering their services to EU citizens will have to implement portability systems anyways, due to extraterritoriality of GDPR)
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Additional comment: it looks like the consultation period extends until March 2017 or so, but it is left very vague.