Swiss Criminal Code

1. Any per­son who in his ca­pa­city as a mem­ber of the clergy, law­yer, de­fence law­yer, not­ary, pat­ent at­tor­ney, aud­it­or sub­ject to a duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity un­der the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions (CO)⁴⁵⁷, doc­tor, dent­ist, chiro­pract­or, phar­macist, mid­wife, psy­cho­lo­gist, nurse, physio­ther­ap­ist, oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­ap­ist, di­eti­cian, op­to­met­rist, os­teo­path or as an as­sist­ant to any of the fore­go­ing per­sons dis­closes con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion that has been con­fided to him in his pro­fes­sion­al ca­pa­city or which has come to his know­ledge in the prac­tice of his pro­fes­sion shall be li­able on com­plaint to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.⁴⁵⁸

A stu­dent who dis­closes con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion that has come to his know­ledge in the course of his stud­ies is also li­able to the fore­go­ing pen­al­ties.

A breach of pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity re­mains an of­fence fol­low­ing the ter­min­a­tion of pro­fes­sion­al em­ploy­ment or of the stud­ies.

2. The per­son dis­clos­ing the in­form­a­tion is not li­able to any pen­alty if he does so with the con­sent of the per­son to whom the in­form­a­tion per­tains or on the basis of writ­ten au­thor­isa­tion is­sued in re­sponse to his ap­plic­a­tion by a su­per­i­or au­thor­ity or su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity.

3. The fed­er­al and can­ton­al pro­vi­sions on the du­ties to re­port and co­oper­ate, the duty to testi­fy and on the ob­lig­a­tion to provide in­form­a­tion to an au­thor­ity are re­served.⁴⁵⁹