Source: Press

"It is unacceptable that unique personal identification numbers (JMBG) are unchangeable in Serbia because then nothing can be done in case of their abuse. Damage caused by identity theft in the USA alone is estimated at dozens of billions of dollars. The main trouble in Serbia is the fact that we are not even aware of the magnitude of this problem", Mr. Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, said in his statement given to "Press" daily. He emphasized that no one in Serbia recognized this as an issue which should be seriously discussed.

Source: "Blic"

OSCE criticizes Data Confidentiality Law

N. Korlat

The Article which would prevent the Commissioner for Information and the Ombudsman from accessing certain information has finally been deleted from the Draft Law on Data Confidentiality. However, since certain provisions of these regulations are still disputable, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has recently reacted to that.

Source: "Blic"

Several years ago when the world renowned audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers published the results of a survey carried out in 40 countries worldwide in over 5,000 institutions and companies which showed that in about 43% of cases corruption and frauds were disclosed owing to insiders, many people may have been surprised. But subsequent surveys also confirmed this or even higher contribution of insiders in the fight against corruption. Thus it is hard to imagine an efficient concept of the fight against corruption in the modern world if it, among other things, does not imply considerable contribution which insiders or "whistleblowers", as they are more often called in the world, give to disclosure of corruption and abuses.

Source: «Politika»

The current situation brought back to public life two legal projects which heathed the atmosphere this past summer despite the already high temperature of our political life. Namely, at the beginning of June, the Government quickly and with no public debate confirmed and sent to the National Assembly the Proposal of the Law on Alterations and Additions to the Law on Information. The Proposal was widely criticized by almost the entire expert public. There were obviously many justified criticisms since the proposing entity submitted amandments to almost all of the articles and, in such a way, considerably altered the original proposal. But, even though numerous shortcomings regarding their obvious anti-constitutional nature have been dealt with, numerous others remained. The Ombudsman initiated the proceedings which aim to determine the constitutional nature of the law.

Source: Blic

From the viewpoint of free access to information, a provision of the Bill determining the maximum number of employees in republic administration, drafted by the Government of Serbia and forwarded to the National Assembly for adoption, deserves special attention. The provision in question is article 6 which stipulates that the data on the number of employees and contracted individuals are public. Furthermore, it stipulates that state administration bodies, public agencies and mandatory social welfare organizations are due to publish such data on their Internet presentations. And which is more, it envisages the existence of a special Register on the number of employed and contracted individuals in all these organs, which should be installed and managed by the Ministry of Finance, with an obligation to publish it on its Internet presentation.

Source: Politika

In some countries, "whistleblowers" take part in disclosure of corruption scandals and frauds in over 50% of cases

Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information

Several days ago, Mr. Stephen Kohn, Executive Director of the US National Whistleblowers Centre in Washington, visited Podgorica. Of course, even those with minimum knowledge about this issue know that, regardless of "blowers" and a "whistle", the reason for his visit to Montenegro was not a music performance but something completely different. It was a lecture on the subject "Reporting Corruption - Protection of Whistleblowers and Public Interest".