The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection warned once again that the quantity of personal data of crime suspects, and even more of the victims of criminal offences, published in the media was alarming, highlighting as a particular problem the publication of data from which underage victims can be identified.

Emphasizing that special attention should be paid to the facts which show that in many cases the sources of such information were employees in public authorities, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic also said:

"The number of examples of violations of the right to personal data protection is inadmissibly high. Certain media publish data classified as "particularly sensitive" under the law, such as data from medical files, results of polygraph testing of suspects and full content of statements made by detained witnesses, although any attempt to have access to such data, for example by exercising the rights under the Law on Free Access to Information, would almost certainly be denied because such data are classified as "secret" or their disclosure "would prejudice the course of the proceedings".

By far the worst instances are those that involve publication of information which indirectly but still clearly identifies underage victims of criminal offences, including even rape, incest or a similar horrid experience a victim had to go through.

I respect the journalists' right not to disclose their sources of information guaranteed by the law; I neither ask nor expect them to do so. I would just like to appeal to journalists and the media to refrain from publishing information which grossly violates privacy and remind them that they themselves wrote the following in their code of ethics: "Even if competent public authorities publish any information on the committer or victim of a criminal offence that is protected by privacy, the media must not publish such information. Errors made by public authorities do not tacitly give us licence to violate ethical principles of the profession."

However, as regards the real possibility that a significant number of the said personal data is distributed from public authorities, I would like to underscore that it is also punishable under the Criminal Code. Note that Article 146 of the Criminal Code stipulates that an official who discloses to another person personal data that are collected, processed and used in accordance with the law or use such data for a purpose other than the one originally intended will be sentenced for up to three years of imprisonment.

Of course, the Commissioner cannot conduct criminal proceedings; there are authorities specified by the law to perform this task. I believe it is really high time they began paying much more due attention to the incidents I highlighted here."