Privacy policy

This is an English translation provided for convenience. The binding version is the Slovak text at Ochrana osobných údajov; in the event of any discrepancy, the Slovak wording prevails.

I. Introduction

Advokátska kancelária Dušan Štric, s. r. o. is a company with its registered office at Pražská 3231/37, 811 04 Bratislava – Staré Mesto, Slovak Republic, company ID (IČO): 55 866 166, tax ID (DIČ): 2122144772, VAT ID: SK2122144772, registered in the Commercial Register of the Bratislava III Municipal Court, section: Sro, insert no. 173605/B, authorised to provide legal services under Act No. 586/2003 Coll. on the Legal Profession and on amendments to Act No. 455/1991 Coll. on Trade Licensing (the Trade Licensing Act), as amended (the Legal Profession Act) (the Controller).

Services under the Legal Profession Act are provided by the Controller, the Controller's trainee lawyers, the Controller's employees, and other attorneys associated with the Controller under the Legal Profession Act. In carrying out its activities under the Legal Profession Act, the Controller acts in accordance with that Act and with the rules issued by the Slovak Bar Association (SBA). The Controller holds professional liability insurance in accordance with applicable law.

When processing personal data, the Controller is governed in particular by Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, repealing Directive 95/46/EC (the GDPR), which also governs your rights as a data subject, and by the provisions of Act No. 18/2018 Coll. on the Protection of Personal Data that apply to the Controller (in particular Section 78), by the Legal Profession Act and by other legislation. In carrying out its activities under the Legal Profession Act, the Controller also acts in accordance with the Code of Conduct adopted by the SBA, which provides information on the processing of personal data by attorneys and is available at www.sak.sk.

The information below on the protection of personal data and on compliance with data protection legislation serves to inform you how the Controller processes your personal data and what rights you have in connection with that processing under applicable law. If you have any questions in this regard, please contact the Controller by email at info@ipiq.sk, or by post at the address of the Controller's registered office.

When processing personal data, the Controller acts as a controller.

II. Purpose and legal basis of the processing of personal data

The Controller processes your personal data without your consent only in cases where applicable law permits such processing. Personal data which you provide to the Controller on the basis of a contract, of specific legislation or of a legitimate interest must be provided to the Controller; otherwise the Controller will be unable to fulfil either your obligations or its own for the given purpose. Without your consent, the Controller processes your personal data only in the following cases and on the following legal bases:

a) If you are a supplier, a customer, or a person authorised by a supplier or a customer

The Controller processes your personal data to the extent of ordinary data, in particular identification and contact data:

b) If you are a recipient or a sender of the Controller's correspondence

The Controller processes your personal data to the extent of ordinary data, in particular contact data, including the subject matter of the correspondence:

c) If you are a job applicant

The Controller processes your personal data to the extent of ordinary data, in particular identification and contact data and other data provided to the Controller through a CV or an interview:

d) If you are a natural person exercising your rights as a data subject under the GDPR

The Controller processes your personal data to the extent of ordinary data, in particular identification and contact data:

e) If you are a data subject relevant by reason of the performance of contractual relations between suppliers and customers

The Controller processes your personal data to the extent of ordinary data, in particular identification and contact data:

f) If you are a client of the Controller, the opposing party to a client of the Controller, or an authorised representative or contact person of any of those parties

The Controller processes your personal data to the extent of ordinary data and of special categories of personal data, to the extent necessary for the practice of law under specific legislation or for translation activities under specific legislation, and, in the case of clients, also for the Controller's activities in the field of protection against money laundering and terrorist financing:

g) If you are a visitor to the Controller's website www.ipiq.sk

The Controller processes your personal data to the extent of ordinary data, in particular online identifiers and the data contained in the contact form:

The Controller may also process your personal data on the basis of your consent, which it may request for each such operation. Giving consent is voluntary, so it is your decision whether or not you provide the personal data to the Controller. If you give the Controller your consent, you may subsequently withdraw it at any time. The Controller may process your personal data solely on the basis of your consent in the following cases:

h) If you are a client who has given the Controller a reference

The Controller processes your personal data to the extent of ordinary data, in particular first name, surname and job title with the employer (the client's business name):

III. Retention period

The Controller retains your personal data only for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes set out above. In retaining personal data, the Controller follows specific legislation laying down retention periods and/or the basic principles of the GDPR on the retention and erasure of personal data.

IV. Sources of the personal data processed

The Controller processes chiefly data which you provided to the Controller in connection with the conclusion of a contract, which you communicated to the Controller in the course of your cooperation with it, or which the Controller obtained from public registers.

V. Disclosure of personal data

The Controller discloses the personal data of clients and of other natural persons only to the extent necessary. Recipients may include, for example:

• a person entrusted by the Controller with carrying out individual acts of legal services, a substitute or cooperating attorney;
• an accounting and/or tax adviser;
• a provider of IT services, software or technical support for the Controller's office, including the employees of such persons;
• the Slovak Bar Association (for example in disciplinary proceedings);
• a person entrusted by the Controller with advisory or proofreading services.

By reason of its duty of confidentiality, the Controller has only a limited obligation to provide your personal data to public authorities; it is, however, obliged to prevent the commission of a criminal offence and to report information in the field of the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing.

VI. Transfers of personal data to third countries

When processing personal data, the Controller seeks to minimise any transfer of personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA). In carrying out its activities, however, the Controller also uses global service providers which may transfer personal data outside the EEA (for example Google). In such cases the Controller ensures that the conditions of the GDPR for such processing are met and carries out the transfer only on the basis of a European Commission adequacy decision under Article 45 GDPR or on the basis of standard data protection clauses under Article 46(2) GDPR.

VII. Cookie policy

Cookies are small text files which may be sent to your browser when you visit a website and stored on your device. These files identify specific information from previous visits to websites. Cookies cannot examine your computer or other devices or read data stored on them.

As a data subject you are under no obligation to provide personal data (other than personal data arising from essential cookies). Other types of cookies (marketing, analytical and statistical) are used exclusively on a voluntary basis after you have given your consent.

Under Section 109(8) of Act No. 452/2021 Coll. on Electronic Communications (the ECA), anyone who stores information on, or gains access to information stored in, a user's terminal equipment is entitled to do so only if the user concerned has given demonstrable consent. The obligation to obtain consent does not apply to law enforcement authorities and other state bodies. This does not preclude the technical storage of, or access to, data for the sole purpose of carrying out or facilitating the transmission of a communication over a network, or where it is strictly necessary for a provider of an information society service to provide a service explicitly requested by the user.

The Controller may therefore use essential cookies without your consent under the last sentence of the cited provision of the ECA, and may use other cookies (in this case statistical cookies) only on the basis of your demonstrable consent.

a) Essential cookies

Essential cookies are cookies which serve solely to ensure the proper technical functioning of the website and to improve the visitor's comfort, which do not process any personal data of website visitors, and whose sole purpose is to carry out or facilitate the transmission of a communication over a network.

The Controller uses the following essential cookies, for which your consent is not required:

Should the essential cookies listed above contain personal data, the Controller will process them on the basis of its legitimate interest under Article 6(1)(f) GDPR, namely carrying out or facilitating the transmission of a communication over a network, and its legitimate interest in processing personal data stored in cookies which are necessary for the operation of the website under Section 109(8) ECA.

b) Non-essential cookies

The Controller uses the following cookies, for which your consent is required, namely statistical (analytical) cookies. The purpose of statistical (analytical) cookies is to enable the website operator to process and store information about website traffic and the use of the website's functions. Each visit to the website is thus (once consent has been given) associated with the storage of specific information about the visitor which they provided during that visit.

Withholding consent to the use of statistical cookies has no effect on the functionality of the website.

Consent is also required for any processing of personal data contained in cookies, under Article 6(1)(a) GDPR and Article 49(1)(a) GDPR, since such a transfer of personal data to a third country (above all the USA) takes place, in respect of which there are no safeguards for the protection of personal data equivalent to EU standards. Such a transfer of cookies to the USA therefore carries risk and, in order for it to take place, the data subject must give explicit consent to the proposed transfer.

By consenting to the processing of statistical cookies you also give consent under Article 49(1)(a) GDPR, and thus, as a visitor to the website, you have been duly informed and advised of the risks associated with such a transfer and you acknowledge them, since those risks may arise from the absence of appropriate safeguards otherwise guaranteed by EU law.

Only with your consent under Article 6(1)(a) GDPR in conjunction with Section 109(8) ECA, and, in the case of a transfer to the USA, also under Article 49(1)(a) GDPR, does the Controller use the following cookies:

The Controller uses Google Analytics 4 to measure traffic and Google Tag Manager to manage and load measurement scripts. Both services are provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland. Google Tag Manager itself stores no cookies on your device; it is a tool through which the other measurement scripts, including Google Analytics, are loaded. Neither Google Tag Manager nor Google Analytics is loaded before you give your consent — until then they are not active on the website and no data is transferred to Google through these tools. You may withdraw your consent at any time in the same way in which you gave it.

The use of cookies can be configured in your web browser. Cookies can be disabled entirely through your browser settings, or the use of only certain cookies can be permitted. Most web browsers are set by default to accept cookies automatically. You can change this setting by blocking cookies or by requesting a notification whenever cookies are to be sent to your device. Changing the cookie settings may, however, leave some websites with limited functionality and reduced user comfort.

VIII. Rights of the data subject in relation to the processing of personal data

• the right of access – you may ask the Controller for access to the personal data it processes about you. The Controller will also provide a copy of the personal data processed.
• the right to rectification – you may ask the Controller to rectify inaccurate or incomplete personal data it processes about you.
• the right to erasure – you may ask the Controller to erase your personal data where any of the following applies:
  • the personal data are no longer necessary for the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed;
  • you previously gave the Controller consent to the processing which you withdraw, and the Controller is not otherwise entitled to process the personal data in question without your consent;
  • you object to processing carried out in the specific situations set out in the GDPR (a task carried out in the public interest, the Controller's legitimate interest or profiling) and there are no overriding legitimate grounds for the processing, or you object to processing for direct marketing purposes;
  • the personal data have been processed unlawfully; the personal data must be erased for compliance with a legal obligation under EU law or the law of a Member State to which the Controller is subject;
  • the personal data were collected in relation to the offer of information society services under the GDPR.
• the right to restriction of processing – you may ask the Controller to restrict the processing of your personal data where any of the following applies:
  • you have contested the accuracy of the personal data, for a period enabling the Controller to verify their accuracy;
  • the processing of your personal data is unlawful but you oppose the erasure of the data and request the restriction of their use instead;
  • the Controller no longer needs the personal data for the purposes of the processing, but you require them for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims;
  • you have objected to the processing of your personal data in the specific situations set out in the GDPR (a task carried out in the public interest, the Controller's legitimate interest or profiling), pending verification of whether the Controller's legitimate grounds override yours.
• the right to data portability – where the Controller processes your personal data on the basis of your consent or where the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, and the processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to request the transmission of the personal data to another controller. This applies where you provided the personal data to the Controller in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and where the rights and freedoms of others are not adversely affected.
• the right to object – you may object at any time to the processing of your personal data by the Controller for direct marketing purposes carried out on the basis of the Controller's legitimate interest, and whenever the Controller processes your personal data on the basis of a legitimate interest or the public interest, including profiling.
• the right to lodge a request for proceedings on the protection of personal data – you have the right to file a request with the Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic for the initiation of proceedings on the protection of personal data. Contact details: Úrad na ochranu osobných údajov SR, Galvaniho Business Centrum II, Galvaniho 7/B, 821 04 Bratislava, Slovak Republic, dataprotection.gov.sk.

A data subject may exercise their rights in writing or electronically, using the contact details given above. The Controller may request additional information needed to confirm the identity of the data subject where it has reasonable doubts about the identity of the natural person who has exercised their rights by means of a data subject request. The Controller is obliged to prevent the disclosure of personal data to an unauthorised person.