Press Releases - Archive

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection attended the Working Group 29 meeting in Brussels, on June 6 and 7, 2012.

This Working Group was established by Article 29 of the Directive of the European Parliament and Council 95/46/ЕC, it is independent in its work and has a consultative character, in its opinions issued to he European Commission, thus significantly influencing the EU policy making in the personal data protection field.

Opinions and recommendations on processing of personal biometric data, legislative solutions in few states (including states outside Europe), ISO standard application, various breaching of rights in member states, etc were adopted at the meeting.

The Commissioner, being the competent state body for this area in the Republic of Serbia was included in the Working Group 29 in the status of an observer, which is the result of the EU candidate country status that was granted to Serbia in March this year.

A seminar for the representatives of 20 civil society organizations from Serbia, was organized as part of the Support to the Application of the Personal Data Protection Law in Serbia project, realized by the association Partners for Democratic Changes Serbia, from June 01 to 04, 2012 in Kovacica.

The goal of the entire project is to enable an efficient application of the Personal Data Protection Law, in order to provide to every individual the practice and protection of the right to privacy, as well as other rights and freedoms related to personal data processing.

The goal of this four-day seminar is to present to the civil society organizations representatives the subject matter of the Personal Data Protection Law, its application, and enable them for surveillance, direct application of the Law, public advocating with the goal of the efficient application of the Law, provision of legal assistance to the citizens and other civil society organizations.

The lecturers at the seminar were the representatives of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection.

Responding to the growing interest of the media, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection has confirmed that authorized parties are surveilling the application of the Personal Data Protection Law by Serbian mobile network operators.

Stressing that such an action has never been done in Serbia, he said that the action was very big, that it started in March this year and is still ongoing, and that he will inform the public and the authorities about its results, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic, also added:

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection  finds the statement issued yesterday by the First Basic Court in Belgrade, insinuating the Commissioner's responsibility for a negative media campaign against that court, for harming the reputation of the Court and its employees, and for an illicit pressure on the work of the court and of the judiciary authority, an irresponsible attempt to drive the public attention from the inexplicable facts from the proceedings in which the Court has pronounced itself incompetent to carry out the execution of the enforced collection of financial fines that the Commissioner imposed, acting under the law, on the Higher Court in Belgrade.

The Commissioner is warning that it is unacceptable for anyone to try to hide negligent work, or even something worse, behind the principle of independent judiciary.

Stressing that the Commissioner has not only the right, but a legal obligation, to inform the public about all problems in reference to practicing the right to free information access, that the undisputed right of the media is to report on that, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic added the following: