Regulations on the use of surveillance in sobering-up centres require clarification

Polish regulations governing the use of video surveillance in sobering-up centres should be brought into compliance with the GDPR. The existing regulations provide questionable legal grounds for recording audio in isolation rooms.

Mirosław Wróblewski, President of the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO), has asked Minister of Health Jolanta Sobierańska-Grenda to clarify the regulations concerning the use of surveillance in sobering-up centres. The legal provisions do not explicitly state whether only video surveillance is permitted or whether video and audio surveillance may be used simultaneously. Concerns regarding the use of surveillance have also been raised with the supervisory authority by the data controllers themselves - the sobering-up centres.

Surveillance significantly interferes with a person's right to privacy and therefore may be permitted only if a number of conditions, both legal and organisational, are met. The legal basis governing the use of video surveillance should precisely define the limits of interference with an individual's informational autonomy (the right to privacy - Article 47, and the right to data protection - Article 51 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland).

Surveillance can also help prevent human rights violations and inhuman or cruel treatment. For years, recordings from surveillance systems have been examined by experts from the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture of the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, who visit places of detention - including sobering-up centres - in order to prevent potential abuses.

At present, the provisions of the Act on Upbringing in Sobriety and Counteracting Alcoholism do not clearly specify whether surveillance in a room should record only images or both images and sound. According to the President of the Personal Data Protection Office, recording audio constitutes excessive processing, while the existing regulations do not provide a sufficient legal basis for carrying out such activities. The use of surveillance by public entities must always have a legal basis in specific statutory provisions.

DPNT.413.8.2026