Questions regarding inaccuracy in line with Article 16

Opozorilo: Mnenje je bilo izdano na podlagi določb Zakona o varstvu osebnih podatkov (ZVOP-1, Uradni list RS, št. 94/07 - uradno prečiščeno besedilo), ki je z dnem 26. 1. 2023 prenehal veljati in ga je nadomestil nov Zakon o varstvu osebnih podatkov (ZVOP-2, Uradni list RS, št. 163/22), zato mnenje ni več nujno aktualno. Mnenja po ZVOP-2 so na voljo tukaj.

The Information Commissioner (Slovenian National Supervisory Body for Personal Data Protection, hereinafter: Slovenian DPA) received your questions regarding inaccuracy in line with Article 16 of the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (GDPR).

As requested, please find below answer to your question wheather one would deem the recording of the a person’s name without diacritical marks included, to be ‘inaccurate’ in line with Article 16 of the GDPR, particularly where a system is unable to do so.

There are a lot of cases where Slovenian letters such as č, š, ž are written as c, s ,z because the system doesn’t allow those letters (for example the keyboard does not contain those letters). It of course depends on all circumstances of the case, but in principle we don’t consider recording of a name without diacritical marks included to be automatically inaccurate (in sense of “inaccuracy of personal data” in Article 16 of the GDPR).

Kind regards,

Mojca Prelesnik

Information Commissioner of the Republic of Slovenia