The Zurich Ministry of Justice is said to have been careless in throwing away computers for years. Hard drives containing unencrypted, highly sensitive data – police officers’ mobile numbers, addresses of prosecutors, even psychiatric reports – found their way into the Zurich environment. The data protection specialist Martin Steiger* calls for a quick and complete clarification.
Blick: Mr. Steiger, the Zurich Ministry of Justice admits that data carriers were not disposed of properly until 2012, resulting in data falling into the wrong hands. No one wants to say more because of an ongoing criminal case. Is the?
Martin Steiger: I am surprised! This reinforces the impression that they want to keep it a secret as much as possible. Several legal and political questions arise. But it is already clear today: the loss of confidence in Zurich’s judiciary is enormous.
What legal questions arise?
Fortunately, the media did their job and brought the matter to light. The authorities apparently did not want to create transparency. If it’s true that you wanted to save money on disposal and you simply returned the hardware without a contract, there could be a breach of duty of care. If hard disks are transferred with the mere statement that the data must be deleted in order to resell the hard disks, a violation of professional secrecy is even conceivable. Were there really no technical and organizational protection measures?
That would be an official crime. The public prosecutor’s office should have investigated this as early as 2020. But now the violation expires at the end of the year!
In case of doubt, a judge should decide whether a crime has been committed. In practice, there is some room for maneuver in the case of violations of office. Now we come to the political: the public prosecutor’s office is part of the Ministry of Justice. Did the prosecutor have bite inhibition?
After that it looks like.
Looks can be deceiving, we don’t know. Apparently there is an internal message. This should be published as soon as possible. Finally, the principle of publicity applies in the canton of Zurich.
And what more do you expect?
It’s about trust. The case could be re-examined independently and outside the canton. A special prosecutor is obvious. There are many serious accusations in the room. As long as it remains unclear why the Public Prosecution Service has not investigated the case, suspects will think of abuse of office or favoritism. Zurich’s judiciary should not have to live with such accusations.
What should be done politically?
The GPK in Zurich must be fully informed. It should also be clarified how exactly federal and cantonal data protection officers were informed about the case and what they did. We can choose whether or not to give our data to Facebook. But when it comes to the state, we have no choice. We have to trust the authorities whether we like it or not. Care and trust are therefore particularly important.
You tweeted that Jacqueline Fehr would have to resign if officials had any responsibility. Are you serious?
If I may believe the reports in the media, alderman Fehr kept the matter secret instead of creating transparency and thus trust. What is the Director of Justice hiding? Government councilor Fehr acknowledges that the reputation of the judiciary in Zurich will be damaged for years to come. The individual employees of the judiciary should not fall victim to this, because the director of justice bears political responsibility.
* Martin Steiger is a lawyer from Zurich and a specialist in data protection law, intellectual property law, IT law and media law.