STOISITS: SCHLOARSHIPS - NO LEGAL BASES FOR RETRIEVING PERSONAL DATA?

A student’s father turned to the Ombudsman Board and complained that while applying for a scholarship his daughter had been required to answer questions meant to generate personal data. The questionnaire among others contained questions about the parents’ education and profession as well as about the applicant’s spouse. For the father the reasons were not traceable. He also was not able to find any legal bases for the data acquisition.

The responsible Ombudswoman Terezija Stoisits turned to the former Federal Minister of Science and Research. In her statement the Minister explained that the retrieved data was meant exclusively for internal statistics of the scholarship board in order to monitor the effectiveness of the scholarships and was not passed on to third parties. Answering the objective questions is non-compulsory and abstaining does not influence the evaluation of the entitlement to scholarships. A legal basis could not be named.

The voluntariness of the specifications neither became apparent when reading the questionnaire nor when reading the additions, the Ombudswoman said. She highlighted the necessity of a legal basis in case that the data should be retrieved in the future. Ombudswoman Stoisits also stressed that the questionnaires need to be designed in such a way that the voluntariness became clear. Also the fact that the data is being used strictly for statistic purposes must result clearly form the questionnaire.

The Federal Minister pointed out that due to its meaningfulness for the planning of scholarships the objective data will also be retrieved in the future. However the scholarship board will be advised to adapt the design of the objective questionnaires in such a way that the voluntariness becomes clear. Further a legislative initiative generating a legal basis for retrieving of the objective data.