New Swiss Data Protection Act – The Most Important Changes For Companies

New Swiss Data Protection Act - the most important changes for companies¹

Introduction

The Swiss Parliament passed the revised Data Protection Act (nFADP) on 25 September 2020.² The nFADP as well as the new Data Protection Ordinance (DPO) and the new Ordinance on Data Protection Certification (DPCO) will enter into force on 1 September 2023.

The aim of the revision was, on the one hand, to strengthen data protection by improving the transparency of data processing and the control options of data subjects over their data and, at the same time, to increase the sense of responsibility of those responsible.³ Another important goal was to maintain Switzerland's competitiveness and to enable Switzerland to ratify the Council of Europe's revised data protection convention ETS 108, to align with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and thus to continue to be recognized as a third country with an adequate level of data protection.