On the occasion of the text published in the daily newspaper "Danas" on August 10, 2022, in which the information about the address of the President of the Republic apartment was revealed, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Protection of Personal Data, as the state body responsible for personal data protection in the Republic of Serbia, reminds citizens that personal data protection of the citizens in the Republic of Serbia is regulated by the Personal Data Protection Law, which also covers special categories of personal data processing, including the processing of personal data for the purposes of journalistic research and publication of information in the media.

Regarding the aforementioned processing of personal data, the provisions of Chapters II to VI and Articles 89 to 94 of the Law, which regulate: principles of personal data processing, Data Subject rights, obligations of Controllers and Data Processors, status and powers of the Commissioner, do not apply in this case. This exemption means that the Commissioner in this particular case cannot exercise the powers that otherwise belong to him under the Law, which falls under the previous practice of the Commissioner and the Administrative Court.

However, this does not mean that the Commissioner cannot protect personal data that has been violated in the manner described. In this sense, the Commissioner, using his powers, will file a criminal complaint to the competent prosecutor's office against the unknown perpetrator for the criminal offense referred to in Article 146 of the Criminal Code, unauthorized collection of personal data.

The Commissioner once again reminds all media outlets that when publishing information in the media, they respect the citizens’ personal data and that in each individual case, before publishing such data, they perform a public interest test to determine whether the public interest in publishing specific data outweighs the right to protect personal data or not.