What is a data filing system
According to Article 7 (1) of the Act on the Protection of Personal Data, a filing system “shall mean any structured set of personal data which are accessible pursuant to specific criteria, whether centralized, decentralized or dispersed on a functional basis”. The feature of a data filing system, which distinguishes it from another data set, is therefore its structure i.e. such a structured order, which gives the possibility to retrieve specific data according to a specific criterion.
In order to classify a set of data as a data filing system within the meaning of the Act on the Protection of Personal Data, it is sufficient, if it is possible to find personal data on the basis of a criterion. The ability to search by any personal criterion (e.g. name, surname, date of birth, social security number) or impersonal criterion (e.g. date of entry of data into a filing system) determines the nature of an ordered set of data and thus allows the set to be qualified as a data filing system.
Only a structured set of data qualified as a data filing system should be notified to registration by the Inspector General for Personal Data Protection, as long as none of the prerequisites set out in Article 43 of the Act on the Protection of Personal Data, releasing the data controller from this obligation, take place.