News

Commissioner Milan Marinović, deputy Commissioner Sanja Unković, and acting Assistant Secretary-General in the Sector for Harmonization Dragana Stojković participate from 09 to 11 October in the session of the Working Group for the development of the Action Plan for implementing the Personal Data Protection Strategy for 2023 to 2030, in Divcibare. The Working Group's goal is to adopt the said Action Plan as soon as possible to begin implementing the Strategy and, as one of the first activities, start working on the necessary changes to the Law on Personal Data Protection.

In the session of this Working Group participants, in addition to representatives of the line Ministry of Justice and the Commissioner's Office, there were also representatives of the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Health, the Office for IT and eGovernment, the National Academy for Public Administration, the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, representative of the Academic Community and international expert in the field of personal data protection. The Working Group's work was supported by the German Organization for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the EU Delegation to Serbia.

Commissioner Milan Marinović and Deputy Commissioner Sanja Unković participated in the International Forum of Ombudsmen and Independent Authorities engaged in human rights protection, held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The Conference’s main topic is climate change and the protection of human rights. The Commissioner was one of the panelists on a panel dedicated to free access to information related to climate change. In addition to the Commissioner, panelists from Georgia, the Philippines, Mexico, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and a representative of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Serbia participated in this panel, which aroused great interest. As part of the visit to Azerbaijan, in addition to participating in the said forum, the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner held a series of bilateral meetings with representatives of other independent authorities.

On Wednesday, September 18, 2024, the accredited lecturers of the Commissioner's Office, Marin Cetinić and Aleksandra Lakićević, held a training session on the application of the Law on Personal Data Protection to employees of the company "Mona Fashion doo". The training was implemented at the initiative of the said company, and it was attended by 13 employees from all sectors of the "Mona" company who come in touch with personal data processing.

The topics covered in this training were personal data processing via the so-called "loyalty" cards, data collected directly from customers through "online" sales, and video surveillance systems in the company's retail stores. The entire training session was marked by the exceptional activity of the participants, and after the end of the training in the long discussion that followed numerous ambiguities were resolved regarding the principle of data minimization in data collection, the application of the principle of customer data accuracy, as well as the potential ways of customer identification. At the end, the participants of the training were provided with distinctive examples of inspection supervision from the extensive Commissioner's practice.

A series of personal data protection trainings for police representatives continued on September 12 and 13 in the police departments of Smederevo (31 employees) and Valjevo (81 employees). The lecturers on the subject of data protection were the representatives of the Commissioner's Office, Marin Cetinić and Marko Milošević, and the Ministry of Interior delegated Dragan Obradović, this authority's Data Protection Officer. OSCE Mission to Serbia supports the training sessions within the framework of its project activities.

Police members were familiarized with the provisions of the Law on Personal Data Protection and referred to these provisions from the scope of the police, pointing out the inconsistencies of these regulations. The lecture presented the evolution of Ministry of Interior protection measures through examples from the Commissioner's practice, focusing on the importance of these measures, especially the use of individual and strong passwords, and the importance of log files for accountability in acting. One of the more important topics that interested the policemen was including a diagnosis in medical certificates for sick leave to determine the capability of working with and without a weapon. Around 800 policemen have attended the training so far, and the remaining police departments in Serbia are planned to be visited by the end of the year.