Swiss FADP Article 15: Duties of the representative

What this article means in practice

Written by Engage Compliance. The text above is the article itself, reproduced from its official source and unchanged. Everything in this section is ours, and last read against the current text on 2026-09-07.

Article 15 is the article that makes the Swiss representative appointment different in kind from every other one in this family. It makes the representative responsible for maintaining the controller's processing record, requires the representative to hand that record to the FDPIC on request, and makes it the party that tells data subjects how to exercise their rights.

Who it binds

• The representative appointed under Article 14. The duties here are the representative's, not the controller's.
• It binds only where an Article 14 appointment exists at all, so the four cumulative conditions in Article 14(1) decide whether this article ever engages.
• It does not bind a representative appointed voluntarily by a controller outside the Article 14(1) tests, because the duty attaches to the statutory appointment.

What it makes somebody do

• The representative. Maintain a record of the controller's processing activities containing the information set out in Article 12(2) (Article 15(1)).
• The representative. Provide the FDPIC, on request, with the information contained in that record (Article 15(2)).
• The representative. Provide data subjects, on request, with information on how they can exercise their rights (Article 15(3)).
• You, the controller. Supply the underlying detail. Article 15(1) obliges the representative to maintain a record of YOUR processing, which it cannot do from anything but information you give it and keep current.

What it does not say

• It does not make the representative a controller. The duty is record-keeping and information, and nothing in Article 15 gives the representative any say over purposes or means.
• It does not require the representative to answer a data subject's request on the merits. Article 15(3) is about telling a person how to exercise their rights, not about exercising them for you.
• It does not let the representative simply hold a copy of a document you wrote. Article 15(1) says maintain, which is an ongoing obligation on the representative and is why a Swiss appointment needs more from you at onboarding than an EU one does.
• It sets no format. Article 15(1) points at the content in Article 12(2) and stops there.
• The English text of this Act has no legal force. The German, French and Italian versions govern.

How it sits beside the other mandates

• Under the GDPR the record stays yours: you write it, you keep it current, and an authority asks you about its contents. Article 15(1) reverses that for Switzerland, and it is the reason a Swiss appointment cannot be onboarded with the same questions as an EU one.
• Article 12(2) defines the content, so the real scope of this appointment is set there rather than in Article 15.
• A company holding both an EU and a Swiss appointment is running two records under two different owners for overlapping processing, which is worth designing for rather than discovering.