The President of the Personal Data Protection Office (PDPO) Mirosław Wróblewski withdrew all the cassation appeals submitted to the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) in matters concerning the transfer of citizens’ data to Polish Post for the organization of so-called envelope voting. These cases are connected with the attempt to conduct presidential elections solely by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020.
The elections were to be organized before the appropriate law came into effect, and the Ministry of Digitalization transferred personal data of voters from the PESEL register to the Polish Post on a CD, containing PESEL numbers and residential addresses. These data were entered into the Polish Post’s IT system and destroyed only when it was clear that the postal election would not take place.
Citizens filed complaints to the President of the PDPO, claiming that their rights were violated by the Polish Post, the Ministry of Digitalization, and some local government authorities. At that time, the President of the PDPO refused to initiate administrative proceedings, referring to the Prime Minister’s administrative decision of April 16, 2020, which imposed on the Polish Post the obligation to obtain personal data. The President of the PDPO believed that there was a legal basis to provide this data to the postal operator in accordance with Art. 6 sect. 1 letter c) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Of the 232 complaints, the PDPO left 123 unrecognized due to formal deficiencies and refused to initiate proceedings in 105 cases. Thirteen people appealed these decisions to the Voivodship Administrative Court (VAC) in Warsaw, which in eight cases found in their favor. The President of the PDPO submitted cassation appeals to the SAC against these judgments in 2021 and 2022.
The withdrawal of the cassation appeals by the President of the PDPO results from the SAC’s verdict of March 13, 2024, which dismissed Polish Post’s cassation appeal against the VAC’s verdict of February 26, 2021. The VAC’s verdict, which acknowledged that the data sharing by the Minister of Digitalisation violated the law, became legally binding. In one of the cases, the SAC has already discontinued the cassation proceedings, and the supervisory body conducts an administrative proceeding in this matter. If the SAC discontinues the remaining cassation proceedings, the President of the PDPO will also attend to them.
Source: https://managerplus.pl/prezes-uodo-wycofuje-skargi-kasacyjne-zwiazane-z-przekazywaniem-danych-obywateli-na-wybory-kopertowe-67196
