Real estate Cadastre and Personal Data Protection

On 25 May 2018, Regulation No. 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the EU Council from 27 April 2016, on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data (hereinafter “the Regulation“) came in force. It is known as GDPR (General data Protection Regulation) and provides a uniform legal Framework for the protection of personal data valid throughout the EU territory.

The regulation also applies to the personal data kept in the real estate cadastre (hereinafter “KN”). The Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre (hereinafter “ČÚZK”) is in the position of the administrator of personal data registered in the cadastre; cadastral offices are processors of personal data registered in the cadastre. The administration of personal data registered in the cadastre is governed by the Cadastral Act, which stipulates that the Real estate cadastre is a public list. Therefore, neither the administrator nor the processor has to apply for the consent to the personal data administration, as it is its legal obligation to process and publish this data. Personal data will also never be deleted from the cadastre, as cadastral offices are obliged to keep the history of legal relations to real estate in the whole continuity (from the establishment of real estate records).

The personal data of owners and other authorized persons are kept in the cadastre to the extent stipulated by the Cadastral Act, while the name, surname, birth number= ID number (if not, date of birth), address of permanent residence (and if he does not have it, address of residence). Number of persons registered in the cadastre and having the same name, surname and date of birth as another person registered in the cadastre is high (approximately 6.000 duplicates and even nearly 150 triplicates) and the address is not sufficient and reliable identification it is also necessary to keep the birth number for unambiguous identification of the owner. The extent of the personal data entered in the KN is therefore proportionate to the purposes for which the cadastre is kept, and so it does not change in the context of the Regulation.

With regard to ensuring compliance with the Regulation and processing of personal data in the conditions of ČÚZK, it was necessary to make some changes in the area of data provision from the cadastre. These changes do not concern the provision of individual data, such as extracts from the real estate cadastre. Nothing has changed even for users of the applications Remote Access or Consultation of the Real Estate Cadastre.

Based on the amendment of the Decree No. 358/2013 Coll., on the provision of data from the real estate cadastre, in force from 1 January 2019, there was a change only in the provision of real estate cadastre data in file form (bulk data in the cadastral exchange format - VFK). The change concerns file data that contain personal data (not, for example, the VFK of a digital cadastral map). The data of the descriptive information file in the VFK contains only the encrypted internal identifier of the natural person (so-called pseudonymisation was performed). Based on this identifier, users of the VFK will obtain information about a specific owner or other authorized person via new web service of the Remote Access application. It will be the responsibility of end users to assess the legality and adequacy of the extent of personal data obtained in this way. The use of this new web service will be audited for the needs of performing control activities (e.g. by the supervisory authority).

More detailed information, concerning the personal data processing by the cadastral and land-surveying organs can be found under following links: