The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection warned all organizers of sporting events that the collection of photocopies of personal identification cards of individuals to whom the tickets are sold or given through fan clubs represents illegal personal data processing and asked them to stop with the aforementioned without further ado.

In this regard, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic stated the following:

"The practice of collecting personal identification card photocopies from individuals buying tickets, the organizers wrongly base on Article 13 of the Law on the Prevention of Violence and Improper Behavior at Sports Events, which obliges them to have information on the identity of individuals to whom the tickets are sold or given through fan clubs, as well as forward those registers to the Ministry of Interior.

By collecting photocopies of personal identification cards from individuals to whom the tickets are sold, much more information is gathered than necessary. Namely, besides the first and last names, the address, and the Unique Personal Number of Citizen, the identification card contains the card registration number; individual's photograph; individual's signature; city, municipality and country of birth; as well as a finger print.

It is needless to mention that forming large databases of personal document photocopies in the era of modern technologies that make falsification easy is a serious and unnecessary risk. It is always a risk, especially when it is not regulated how nor how long the information is to be kept, as well as to whom and why they are available.

Article 8 points 5, 6 and 7 of the Law on Personal Data Protection state that the collection is not allowed if the number and the type of data being processed are disproportionate to the purpose of processing or if the data is not needed in order to achieve the purpose of processing. In this regard, I would like to warn all the entities performing the previously mentioned personal data processing that it is illegal and that they should stop immediately."