Is this admissible under the provisions of the Act on the Protection of Personal Data for the recruitment companies to process personal data of the job applicants acquired from the press announcements in cases in which the employer wishes to remain anonymous?
If the employer which orders the recruitment company to find job candidates for him wishes to remain anonymous the person who applies for work is not able to get necessary information about the controller of the personal data within the meaning of Article 7 point 4 of the Act of August 29, 1997 on the Protection of Personal Data (unified text: Journal of Laws of 2002, No 101, item 926 with later amendments), as well as about the subject to which the data will be disclosed, although this company has such data. Just job applicants are informed about the line of business in which the company operates.
According to the Inspector General for Personal Data Protection such practice violates the provisions of Article 24 paragraph 1 of the data protection Act. The controller of the personal data is obliged to provide the data subject with such information as the address of its seat and full name and in case when the controller is a natural person about the address of residence and his/her full name. The data controller is also obliged to inform the data subject about the purpose of data collection and about the known at the date of collecting the data about the possible data recipients.
Data controller has no obligation to provide the data subject with the above mentioned information only if other provisions of law state otherwise, or when the data subject already has the mentioned information.
Because in case of collecting data on the basis of the press announcement none of the prerequisites excluding the information obligation is fulfilled the employer is obliged to inform the data subject, especially about the possible recipients of personal data and the names of possible employer.


