Personal data protection notice

You can contact the HKV law firm:

• at the correspondence address: HKV Law Firm s.r.o. with its registered office at Poštová 3, 811 06 Bratislava;       
• by telephone: +421 2 54 41 01 60 ;      
• by e-mail at: office@hkv.sk .    

Based on the legitimate interest, HKV monitors its premises with camera systems in order to protect its property and ensure the security of the law firm’s premises, equipment and software. HKV also relies on legitimate interests in legal or extrajudicial disputes or in proceedings with public authorities in which HKV does not represent its clients, but asserts and proves its legal claims and in the processing of personal data of contact persons or other persons authorized to act on behalf of legal entities with which HKV cooperates. Based on the legitimate interest, HKV also sends marketing communications for which consent is not required under applicable law, in particular to HKV’s clients or other persons with whom HKV already has a relevant relationship.

The personal data of our clients and other natural persons is made available by HKV only to the extent necessary and always while maintaining the confidentiality of the data recipient, e.g. our employees, persons entrusted with the performance of individual acts of legal services, representing or cooperating lawyers, our accounting consultants, professional advisers (e.g. marketing agency ) and professional service providers (e.g. IT company) , the Slovak Bar Association (e.g. in in the case of disciplinary proceedings) or by the software or support providers of our office, including employees of these persons.

Although HKV has a limited obligation to provide your personal data to public authorities for the sake of confidentiality, we are obliged to prevent the commission of a criminal offence and we also have an obligation to report information at the section of ​​money laundering prevention and terrorist financing.

HKV only occasionally transmits cross-border transfers of your personal data to third countries outside the European Economic Area (EU, Iceland, Norway and Lichtenstein) / Cross-border transfer of your personal data to third countries outside the European Economic Area (EU, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein) is carried out by HKV only occasionally. E-mail communication and electronic copies of all documentation related to our activities remain stored on servers located in the Slovak Republic or on servers located in the countries of the European Economic Area (e.g. Germany). In providing its services, HKV also uses global service providers such as Google,LLC., Facebook, Inc. , LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company, Microsoft Corporation and MailChimp c/o The Rocket Science Group, LLC, primarily for marketing purposes and the presentation of HKV. These providers are located in the United States, which is generally considered a third country that does not provide an adequate level of protection. The transfer of personal data to third countries, including the USA, is always carried out by HKV on the basis of the existing European Commission adequacy decision under Article 45 of the GDPR or on the basis of standard data protection clauses under Article 46 par. 2 GDPR.

Although it follows from the nature of advocacy that it may also have adverse legal effects on other natural persons (e.g. counterparty), there is no automated individual decision-making within the ordinary course of advocacy as stated in the Article 22 of the GDPR.

We store personal data for as long as necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed. When storing personal data, we follow the recommended retention periods in accordance with the resolution of the Presidency of the Slovak Bar Association No. 29/11/2011, e.g.:

• the book of incoming mail and the book of sent mail after its completion shall be kept by the lawyer for a period of ten years from the date of receipt or dispatch of the last consignment entered in the book;
• the inventory list is archived by the lawyer for ten years from its writing;
• if the lawyer keeps the list of clients’ names and the client’s file protocol electronically, at the end of the calendar year he shall prepare a printed form for the calendar year and store it in the office without a time limit;
• the shredding period of the client’s file is 10 years and runs from the day when all conditions for storing the file in the archive are met.

Lawyers are subject to regulations that interpret the obligations of lawyers under the Advocacy Act, under which there are certain circumstances that extend our retention periods of personal data, or more precisely they prevent us from shredding some documents for understandable reasons. e.g.:

• the client file, which contains the original documents handed over to the client’s lawyer, cannot be shredded;
• it is not possible to shred client file protocols and client file names.
• it is not possible to shred the client file or its part, which the lawyer is obliged to hand over to the state archive;
• it is not possible to shred a client file if there is any proceedings before a court, state administration body, law enforcement authorities, the Slovak Bar Association, which are related to the content of the client file, or the subject of which was the act or omission of a lawyer in providing legal assistance in the client’s case.

When maintaining a database of job seekers or applicants for the provision of services, we store personal data for the period of granted consent, for students for 1 year, law clerks for 2 years and lawyers for 3 years or until the revocation of the granted consent.
In human resources and payroll management, HKV retains personal data for the period required by applicable; e.g. the employee’s personal file is kept for 50 years from the end of the employment relationship (until the employee reaches the age of 70), payslips for 50 years, payslips and other payroll for 10 years.

When sending marketing communications, we store personal data for a period of 5 years from the granting of consent or until its revocation.

The accounting documents are kept by HKV for 10 years following the year to which they relate.

If you are a HKV client, we most often collect your personal data directly from you. In this case, the collection of your personal data is voluntary. Depending on the specific case, the non-disclosure of personal data by clients may affect our ability to provide quality legal advice or, in exceptional cases, our obligation to refuse to provide legal advice. We may also obtain personal information about our clients from publicly available sources, from public authorities or from other persons.

If you are not our client, we most often obtain your personal data from our clients or from other public and legal sources by requesting the public authorities, extracts from public registers, obtaining evidence in favour of the client, and so on. In such a case, we may collect personal data about you without informing and also against your will on the basis of our legal authorization and obligation to practice law in accordance with the Advocacy Act.

In the case of selection, employment, human resources and payroll management, HKV usually obtains personal data directly from you. In some cases, however, HKV may obtain personal data from other persons, e.g. through a recruitment agency, but also a contractual partner cooperating with HKV.

If HKV obtains personal data from a person other than the data subject, it will mainly be ordinary personal data such as name, surname, E-mail, job position, address, date of birth, telephone number, etc. Cases of processing special categories of personal data by the HKV law firm are listed in the Code of Conduct of the Slovak Bar Association.

If we process your personal data on the basis of your consent with the processing of personal data, you have the right to revoke your consent at any time by sending an E-mail to: office@hkv.sk or by updating the online settings (you will find the link in every HKV newsletter). Revocation of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of the processing resulting from the consent prior to its revocation.

Nevertheless, you have the right to object the processing of personal data at any time on the basis of a legitimate or public interest, as well as for the purposes of direct marketing, including profiling.

In addition to the above rights, you have the right to:

• request access to personal data concerning you;
• request the correction of incorrect personal data concerning you;
• to delete personal data;
• to limit the processing of personal data;
• the transfer of personal data in accordance with the terms of the GDPR;
• to submit a complaint to the competent supervisory authority, which is the Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic, Hraničná 12, Bratislava, E-mail: dozor@pdp.gov.sk .

Some of the above rights may be limited as a result of HKV’s obligation to maintain confidentiality with reference to Article 15 par. 4 GDPR, Art. 4 GDPR and § 18 par. 8 of the Advocacy Act.

As a client, you have the right to consider access to your personal data as well as their correction. If we process personal data in the provision of legal services, you, as a client or as another natural person (e.g. a counterparty), do not have the right to object such processing under Article 22 of the GDPR. If the personal data concerns the client (regardless of whether the client is a legal entity or a natural person), other persons do not have the right to access the data or the right to transfer, due to our legal obligation to maintain confidentiality and with reference to Art. 15 par. 4 GDPR, Art. 20 par. 4 GDPR and § 18 par. 8 of the Advocacy Act: “A lawyer is not obliged to provide information on the processing of personal data, to allow access or transfer of personal data under a special regulation, if this could lead to a breach of the lawyer’s duty to maintain confidentiality under this Act.”

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Individual cookies have different storage times on your device. Some cookies are deleted from your device after you close the browser window (session cookies), others remain stored on your device even after you finish browsing our website (permanent cookies).

More information about cookies can be found at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

Our website uses cookies for operational purposes, necessary for the proper functioning of the website (functional and technical cookies). These cookies are temporary, do not contain any personal data and are deleted when you close your browser. HKV also uses Google’s analytics tools to monitor traffic to our site and customizing marketing content through social networks and the office’s website. You can prevent saving of these files to your device at any time by setting up your web browser. The settings of your browser are in accordance with § 55 par. 5 of the Electronic Communications Act considered as your consent to the use of cookies on our website.

The protection of personal data is not a one-time affair for HKV. The information that we are required to provide to you with respect to our processing of personal data, may change from time to time. For this reason, HKV reserves the right to modify and change this Notice to any extent at any time. In the event of a change to this Notice in a substantial manner, we will bring the change to your attention, e.g. by a general notice on this website or by a special notice by E-mail.