AMENDMENT TO THE ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS ACT

#44Amendment to the Electronic Communications Act

New Electronic Communications Act will enter into force on 1st February 2022. This amendment will implement the Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 establishing the European Electronic Communications Code (hereinafter referred to as the "Directive") into the legislation of the Slovak Republic. According to the explanatory memorandum, the aim and purpose of the Directive is promoting the competition, development of the internal market and support of the end users´ interests.

The Directive seeks to phase out sector-specific regulation and reach a state where electronic communications are regulated only by competition law. The new legislation regulates the scope, competencies of government authorities in this area, as well as the rights and obligations of consumers and business entities operating in the electronic communications sector. It also defines the fundamental principles to be followed by the government authorities.

New legislation provides protection against intrusion of privacy by unsolicited communications for direct marketing purposes in particular by means of e-mails, SMS messages etc. In this regard everyone must be able to refuse at any time, free of any charge and in a simple way such use of his or her contact details.

In order to strengthen consumer protection regarding the use of electronic communication services, the regulation for the protection of personal data in a relation with cookies have also changed. Under the new legislation, the websites will be entitled to process the visitors’ personal data only with their previous, explicit consent. According to the previous legislation (which is opposite to decisions of some authorities), the setting of the web browser was also considered as consent to processing of personal data, therefore the website did not have to ask for consent to the processing of cookies (only the fulfillment of the information obligation according to the GDPR was required). Since February, without the consent of the website visitor, it will be possible to process only the strictly necessary cookies and the use of all the cookies will require the user's consent. Strictly necessary cookies are classified as cookies that must be present for the website to provide the basic functions of the website. They are essential to be able to access features of the website and could include adding items to a shopping cart during the order.