POLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Agnieszka Janicka and Krzysztof Hajdamowicz, Clifford Chance
8. Data Protection 8.1 Applicable Regulations
tions, issue decisions and impose fines, over - see accreditation, grant certifications and issue interpretations and guidelines.
Data protection issues are principally regulated by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation 2016/679 – the GDPR). The following local acts supplement the GDPR: • the Personal Data Protection Act of 2018; • the Act Amending Certain Acts in Relation to Ensuring Compliance with Regulation 2016/679; • the Act on the Rules of Obtaining Information of a Clean Criminal Record of Persons Seek - ing Employment and Persons Employed in Financial Sector Entities; and • the Labour Code (which regulates the pro - cessing of employees’ data). It is worth noting that local employment laws provide for stricter rules than those of the GDPR in regard to the scope of data and the admis - sibility of monitoring. In particular, background screening of employees and candidates (espe - cially in regard to any criminal record) is sub - stantially restricted, except in the financial sec - tor, where a specific act applies, and for some specific positions in other sectors where, by law, the employee must have a clean criminal record. 8.2 Geographical Scope Local law does not modify the applicability of the GDPR; the geographical scope of applica - tion stems directly from the GDPR. 8.3 Role and Authority of the Data Protection Agency The local data protection agency is the Data Protection Office ( Urzędu Ochrony Danych Osobowych ), whose main role is to control and monitor the processing of personal data, review complaints of data subjects, conduct inspec -
9. Looking Forward 9.1 Upcoming Legal Reforms Corporate Vehicles
Legislative work is currently underway on a draft amendment to the Commercial Companies Code but the legislative process is only at the first stage (ie, subject to public consultation and opinions), so it is uncertain whether the amend - ment will be enacted and, if so, to what extent and in what wording. The Act on the Protection of Whistle-blowers implementing the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of persons reporting infringements of Union law was adopted in Poland in June 2024, and stipulates that all businesses and government organisations employing 50 or more employees are obliged to introduce internal whistle-blowing systems and procedures. Pay transparency Employment Law Whistle-blowing The amending Act to the Labour Code was published on 24 June 2025, introducing amend - ments to the regulations on pay transparency, resulting from the requirements of the Pay Trans - parency Directive of 10 May 2023. The provi - sions of the Act will enter into force six months after the date of announcement. The Act only addresses the issue of salary trans - parency at the stage of recruitment, stating that information on remuneration should be pro - vided to the candidate in advance, and that the
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