Pursuant to reports by several trade unions of education employees, who alleged that the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development had sent a communication to school principals in which it asked for a list of all union members with their personal data, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Processing Rodoljub Šabić sent a letter to Mr. Mladen Šarčević, Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development.

In his letter, the Commissioner noted that Article 16 of the Law on Personal Data Protection categorises information on union membership as "particularly sensitive data", i.e. data that can be processed only on the basis of freely given consent of the data subject. Accordingly, he warned that any processing of such data without such consent would be a direct violation of Article 16 of the Law on Personal Data Protection and would constitute a punishable infringement under Article 57 paragraph 1 item 5).