A free registration is to be required to access the data of real estate through the cadastral portals in the future. This stems from the draft amendment to the Act on the Land Register, which was submitted to the repeated interdepartmental comment procedure by the Office of Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre (ÚGKK) of the Slovak Republic.
The reason for this change is, according to the Office, the fulfillment of obligations arising from the legislation regulating the management of personal data, ensuring the protection of personal data of persons registered in the cadastre, as well as preventing the abuse of cadastral data. The law enforcement authorities will also be able to use the data from this registration. The aim of the presented amendment is to take into account the experience of the application practice.
The fact that a certain register or figure is labeled as “public” according to ÚGKK does not mean that any person without identification has unlimited and uncontrolled access. “The principle that ‘public does not mean anonymous’ is significant in terms of the protection of personal data, cyber security and responsible management of public data resources. Access to public data must be carried out so that it is possible to verify who obtained the data and in what extent – especially in cases where the data is personal,“He stressed the Office in the explanatory memorandum.
According to the petitioner, the proposed provision also responds to the increasing risks associated with the abuse of electronic public administration services, especially in mass or automated data coverage from the real estate cadastral information systems.
“In practice, there are situations where publicly available data is obtained unlawfully, to a large extent, or with the circumvention of access rules, which may endanger the integrity of the system, the availability of services for current users, as well as the safety of personal data,” the ÚGKK explained. The Office should obtain an authorization to intervene against such action, for example by limiting access from suspicious IP addresses, blocking automated robots, introducing speed limits of queries or other appropriate technical interventions.
The draft amendment also precision and supplements the legislation of cadastral proceedings. The proposal to initiate the cadastral proceedings in paper form is simplified, the procedure for the record is regulated in more detail, introducing the possibility of only a partial record. The deadline for making a record on the basis of a court decision on the establishment of a security measure is also reduced. Likewise, the legislation on the note is precision, the investigation of the cadastral data is in more detail and the deadline for this investigation is established.
The proposal also determines the new factual nature of the offense as well as violations of the order in the field of real estate cadastral, namely the unauthorized processing of the cadastral data. At the same time, some new administrative fees are introduced. Most of the amendment is to be effective from 1 July 2026 except for a part of the changes in administrative fees with proposed effect from 1 July 2027.
