The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection received a statement of the Ministry of Interior (MIA) on measures undertaken and planned activities following the Warning which the Commissioner had sent last month, after completed supervision to MIA, regarding processing of citizens’ personal data of those with "F" diagnosis, as well as processing of some other personal data without valid legal grounds.
The Commissioner evaluates as good and correct reaction, that, as the statement of MIA states "Police Directorate, Police Administration and Traffic Police Administration have started work on the preparation of proposal for Mandatory Instruction on the Method of Organizing the Work in Safety Sectors and Police Departments, having for their aim permanent elimination of irregularities quoted in the Warning of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection."
The Commissioner stresses that it is very important that the quoted Mandatory Instruction should be prepared and that its application should start in the shortest possible term, thus enabling overcoming of significant number of problems inherited from the past, which have been tolerated for too long.
The Commissioner, however, warns that for resolving all open issues related to personal data processing, both in the field of internal affairs, and also generally speaking, it takes much more. We need complete, radical change of attitude of all competent parties, primarily the Government of Serbia, towards a very bad situation in this field, and incomprehensible lateness in undertaking legislative activities needed for regulating it in an adequate way.
In relation to the status in the field of internal affairs, the Commissioner reminds that MIA has already in 2014 started to work and has compiled, in good cooperation with the Commissioner, Draft Law on Records and Data Processing, in order to eliminate all difficulties by passing of that Law, in implementation and execution of the Personal Data Protection Act, but until today the procedure of adopting that Law has not been undertaken.
On general level we have an even more drastic example. This is the "activity" of passing of the new Law on Personal Data Protection. For that purpose, already during mid-2012 a Governmental inter-ministerial Working Group has been formed, but without any outcome even after 5 years of "work". Commissioner’s attempts to assist were ignored. In relation to that, the Commissioner reminds that recently, with the support of the majority of competent subjects from the civil sector and the profession, he made available to the Government New Model Law on Personal Data Protection, harmonized as much as possible with the EU General Regulation.
The Commissioner appeals to authorities to immediately undertake activities on adoption of the laws representing a necessary prerequisite for raising the status in the field of personal data protection to at least minimally acceptable level.
