The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection appraises that the Clinical Center of Serbia with its yesterday's announcement in which, among other things, states that it has obtained the consent of Jovanka Broz for publishing particularly sensitive data on her medical condition, could, at least to some extent, to misinform the public.

The inspection supervision performed by authorized officers of the Commissioner directly in the Clinical Center, showed that there is no consent that could be considered relevant in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Personal Data Protection and the Law on Patient's Rights.

In this context, the Commissioner also said the following:

"In order to check the statements from the Clinical Center's announcement and get insight into the content of the document containing the above consent, the Commissioner's authorized officers performed direct inspection supervision in the premises of the Clinical Center of Serbia. On this occasion, it was noted that there is no written consent to data processing as required by law.

CCS representatives stated that the consent was obtained verbally "because they as doctors estimated that she should not have thought at that moment about what she was going to sign, given her poor health condition. The consent was obtained verbally on the very first day 23/08/2013, when she was admitted to the ER around 17:15, before the press conference."

Bearing in mind the provisions of Articles 15 and 17 of the Law on the Personal Data that lays down the conditions and method of obtaining consent to personal data processing, it is clear that this and such obtained "consent" cannot have any legal effect.

Consent to the processing of particularly sensitive data, under the law, shall be only given in writing, and shall contain a designation of the data processed, the purpose of processing and the manner of its use.

If a person giving consent is illiterate or otherwise incapable of signing the consent in hand, such consent shall be valid if two witnesses confirm by their signatures that the document represents the true intent of the person giving the consent.

In addition to this, a writing consent is legally valid only under the condition that the data controller has previously informed the data subject about all circumstances referred to in Article 15 of the Law, which obviously was not done in this case.

In addition to the above, it is necessary to also bear in mind that, as it is stated in the communications of the Clinical Center, Jovanka Broz was admitted in "semi-conscious condition" and the following day there was only a "slight improvement of consciousness." Under such circumstances, even if there was her written consent, it would not be viable to treat it as valid. "