The President of the Polish SA withdraws a cassation appeal brought before the Court

The President of Personal Data Protection Office withdraws a cassation appeal brought before the Supreme Administrative Court [Update]

The judgement of the Supreme Administrative Court of 13 March 2024 in the case concerning the transfer of voters' personal data to Poczta Polska (hereinafter: the Polish Post) by the Minister of Digital Affairs in connection with the preparations of government administration authorities for the 2020 election of the President of the Republic of Poland prompted the President of the Personal Data Protection Office to withdraw his cassation appeal in a similar case.

Mirosław Wróblewski, the President of the Personal Data Protection Office, in the procedural document of 26 March 2024 addressed to the Supreme Administrative Court, withdrew the cassation appeal that the supervisory authority had brought against the judgment of the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw overturning the decision of the President of the Personal Data Protection Office on the refusal to initiate proceedings in a case based on a complaint of one of the citizens against the Ministry of Digital Affairs, which had provided the Polish Post with his personal data for the purposes of the so-called envelope elections.

At the same time, the President of the Personal Data Protection Office requested to discontinue the proceedings in the case before the Supreme Administrative Court.

This is because in the indicated judgment of 13 March 2024, the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the cassation appeal of the Polish Post against the judgment of the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw of 26 February 2021 in the case based on the complaint of the Commissioner for Human Rights against the action of the Minister of Digital Affairs in the matter of making personal data from the PESEL register (personal identification numbers register) available to the Polish Post.

As a result of the abovementioned decision of the Supreme Administrative Court, the abovementioned judgment of the Voivodeship Administrative Court, in which the court declared the described action of the Minister of Digital Affairs to be ineffective as infringing the provisions of law in force at the time when it was performed, became final.

In the context of the above, the President of the Personal Data Protection Office cannot maintain the position presented both in the appealed decision and in the cassation complaint, where it was indicated that, in view of the decision of the President of the Council of Ministers of 16 April 2020 existing in legal force at the time of the transfer of personal data from the PESEL register, imposing on the Polish Post the obligation referred to in Article 99 of the Act of 16 April 2020 on specific support instruments in connection with the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, for the implementation of which the acquisition of personal data by the postal operator is needed, there was a legal basis for making the data available to the postal operator and the acquisition of personal data by the Polish Post was based on Article 6(1)(c) of the GDPR.

The full content of the letter of the President of the Personal Data Protection Office to the Supreme Administrative Court is available in the file attached below.

UPDATE:

We would like to inform you that on 9 April 2024, the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the letter of the President of the Personal Data Office and issued a decision to discontinue this proceedings.

 - In connection with the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of 9 April 2024, the supervisory authority will prepare procedural documents to the Supreme Administrative Court with requests to withdraw cassation appeals against the judgments of the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw in several similar cases concerning the transfer of voters' personal data to the Polish Post by the Minister of Digital Affairs," announced Mirosław Wróblewski, the President of the Personal Data Protection Office.

Administrative proceedings will be conducted in the complaint cases in which the Supreme Administrative Court will discontinue the proceedings at the request of the President of the Personal Data Protection Office.