Press Releases - Archive

In connection with the Draft Law on Personal Data Protection prepared by the Ministry of Justice, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection said that although the Action Plan for Chapter 23 passed within the framework of negotiations with the EU sets out that the Draft Law must be compliant with the Model Law prepared and made available to the Ministry of Justice and the Government by the Commissioner more than a year ago, this had obviously not been done so.

The Commissioner said that the Draft Law ignored the majority of problems observed in practice and if it was adopted as the law, not only would it make no contribution to improvement of the situation in the field of personal data protection, but could instead become the source of additional problems.

In his opinion submitted to the Ministry of Justice, the Commissioner listed numerous already well-known problems which are not addressed by the Draft Law.

Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Rodoljub Sabic and Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic emphasized again the duty to protect addresses, unique personal identification numbers and other personal data even when public authorities and government bodies, the media and other organizations and individuals deal with events and persons of direct interest for the public.

"There is no objective, including transparency and the fight against corruption and other forms of crime, which requires violation of the human rights every one of us is entitled to and each of these objectives can be successfully and efficiently achieved with full respect of human rights", the Commissioner and the Ombudsman jointly emphasized.

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection initiated ex officio enforcement of the Law on Personal Data Protection in case of personal data processing when shareholders' personal data (names and surnames, home addresses, unique personal identification numbers, number of votes and number of shares) were published on websites of seven joint-stock companies.

Such publishing of data is yet another proof that entities handling citizens' personal data do not possess even basic knowledge of the Law on Personal Data Protection and other relevant laws and that their treatment of personal data protection does not satisfy the minimum standards.

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection said that the Draft Law on Personal Data Protection prepared and opened for public debate by the Ministry of Justice is significantly below the necessary and expected level.

Underscoring that it beggars belief that such unsatisfactory text is the result of almost four years of activities on the preparation of the new law, the Commissioner warned that the Draft Law virtually ignored the majority of problems observed in the practice so far, which were the source of numerous violations of citizens' rights, to which he had been pointing for years and for which he had initiated and proposed solutions.

The Commissioner will try, to the extent possible, to contribute to improvement of the content of the Law by providing his opinion in writing to the Ministry of Justice. The Commissioner's opinion will as usual be available to the public. At this moment, primarily for the purpose of professional dignity of his associates, the Commissioner would like to particularly emphasize one fact – although it has been announced and stated in the Action Plan for Chapter 23 passed within the framework of negotiations with the EU that the text of the Law will be based on the Model Law on Personal Data Protection, which the Commissioner made available to the Ministry of Justice and the Government more than a year ago, it is quite obvious that this is not so.