235.1 Loi fédérale sur la protection des données (The Swiss federal law on data protection)
Under Art. 3 Definitions, the law provides the following definitions:
Definition of “personal data”
Personal data, all information about a person, identified or capable of being identified.
Definition of “sensitive data”
Sensitive data, personal data about (a person’s)
1. religious, philosophical, political or trade union-related opinions or activities,
2. state of health, private life or racial identity,
3. social welfare measures,
4. bankruptcy or penal or administrative sanctions.
Serve the City Geneva does not collect or store any sensitive data from anyone.
Definition of “treatment”
Treatment, any operation relative to personal data – whatever means or procedures may be used – particularly the collection, storage, use, modification, communication, archival or destruction of data.
Definition of “communication”
Communication, the fact of making personal data accessible, for example by allowing someone to consult it, by transferring or publishing it.
Art 4. Principles states (among other things):
The treatment (of data) must be carried out in compliance with the principles of good faith and proportionality.
When a person’s consent is required to justify the treatment of personal data concerning that person, the consent of the person concerned is only valid if s/he expresses his/her consent freely, and after having been duly informed. In the case of sensitive data and personality profiles, the person’s consent must in addition be explicit.
(Source: Original text in French at www.admin.ch. Accessed 26 February 2013.)