FADP: achieve compliance with the Federal Act on Data Protection

The Usercentrics Consent Management Platform (CMP) helps you to build user trust, grow revenues and meet FADP compliance requirements.

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What is FADP?

The FADP is the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection, implemented September 1, 2023, with enforcement beginning immediately. The Swiss privacy law overhauls the Swiss Data Protection Act from 1992, and thus is sometimes known as the new or revised FADP. The Act provides Swiss citizens with new rights regarding personal data protection, and creates new responsibilities for organizations regarding data privacy and security.

Switzerland’s data protection law is compatible with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other European laws, and was designed to ensure data flow with the EU and maintain economic opportunities for Swiss companies.

Common FADP questions and answers

VALUING PRIVACY Consent management pays off

The FADP is extraterritorial, so applies to organizations inside or outside of Switzerland if they process the data of Swiss citizens.

The Act is meant to ensure secure, ongoing data flow for personal data in both physical or electronic formats with the EU and EEA. The Swiss law also requires adequacy agreements with other countries or data subjects’ consent for international data transfers to occur.

The FADP protects Swiss citizens’ rights to data privacy guards against infringement of that right from excessive or unauthorized access to their personal data.

ACHIEVING COMPLIANCE Consent management and FADP compliance

Processing of personal data is allowed without a specific legal basis in many cases. Data subjects’ consent is required for processing:

of sensitive personal data
used for high-risk profiling by a government body or private person
for data transfers to third countries where without an adequacy agreement

PRIVACY INNOVATION The new FADP

The FADP is not the GDPR in Switzerland. Some key regulatory differences:

Fines up to CHF 250,000 against responsible individuals, or up to CHF 50,000 against a company
Appointing a Data Protection Officer is recommended, but not mandatory
Less notification/information required in privacy notices or policies
Adequacy for data transfers is determined by the Swiss Federal Council, EU standard contractual clauses or other binding corporate rules can also be applied

How to install Usercentrics CMP

The Usercentrics Consent Management Platform (CMP) stores and manages given consent and privacy preferences for each of your users to prove compliance with a legal basis.

Configure your CMP

Choose your legal framework and/or relevant data privacy regulations.
Identify the Data Processing Services used on your website and set the correct legal basis.
Customize the banner appearance and messaging to meet your needs.

Implement the CMP

Implement the CMP script tag directly in your website or via Google Tag Manager, and for mobile apps integrate it seamlessly using our SDK.
Make adjustments to the scripts/tags being used on your website.
Determine when and at what frequency your banner message will be displayed.

Collect explicit user consent

Start collecting consent from all consumers subject to the DMA.
Use Usercentrics’ geolocation rules to determine who sees your banner and in what languages.
Continuously optimize your consent banner based on extensive data and analytics.

“Short implementation of 7 days for our first site. We can rollout templates with already defined consent technologies, so we stay concentrated on the real issues which bring us further.”

Larissa Wißmann

— Head of Digital Enterprise Services, Haufe Group

Benefits of a consent management platform

Obtain user consent correctly

Take other international regulations into account as well – the EU’s GDPR, The CCPA/CPRA and VCDPA in the US, Brazil’s LGPD, South Africa’s POPIA and industry-specific solutions like the IAB TCF 2.2 framework.

Seamlessly integrate with your app or website

Easily integrates with your app or website and many leading third-party services and tools. We help you meet your data-driven goals.

Build user trust

Be more transparent with users about data usage. Build trust so your audience is more likely to trust you with their data. Increase engagement for long-term customer relationships.

Increase your opt-in rates

Benefit from our special marketing features, like A/B Testing and Contextual Consent, to improve user experience with transparency, and build relationships with your brand.