In a letter addressed today to the Minister of Health, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Mr. Rodoljub Sabic warned that the deadlines set out in the Law on Transfusion Activities for enactment of secondary legislation relevant for personal data protection have expired and the instruments in question have not yet been enacted. The Commissioner warned it was imperative that the Minister enact the said instruments without delay and he appealed to the Minister to provide funding within the means of the Ministry of Health and the Serbian Government to cover the costs of introducing and implementing at least minimum standards of personal data protection which health care institutions cannot provide for alone.

In this regard, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic said:

“This letter to the Minister was occasioned by the recent inspection carried out by inspectors/authorized officers of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection at the Blood Transfusion Institute of Serbia. I would like to underscore that Institute managers and staff have been very forthcoming during the procedure and have taken steps to address some of the issues I highlighted in my warning concerning the identified shortcomings.

However, the Institute lacks the capacity to rectify all those shortcomings alone. By this I mean first and foremost the enactment of secondary legislation, the lack of which results in processing of personal data at the Institute and at all other transfusion establishments in a manner which is not compliant with the Law. This is inadmissible. I have therefore asked the Minister, in view of the fact that the timeframe set out in the Law has expired, to regulate without delay in detail the content of information on possible reactions during blood donation, the volume of blood testing and personal data protection, as well as the content of questionnaires filled out by blood and blood component donors.

A particular issue in this regard is the fact that the lack of funding prevents the Institute from introducing certain physical and technical means of protection which I daresay are elementary. I have therefore appealed to the Minister to help secure the necessary funding, that is to say, proceeding from the logical assumption that the situation in other medical institutions is not much different, I have asked him to find ways to help them all in implementing at least minimum standards of personal data protection. This is indeed paramount, because personal data are identified in the law as particularly sensitive information and their inadequate protection can result in serious violations of personal rights.”