Tax Administration has requested the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection to give an opinion regarding the publication of information about the debts of media companies and their founders – natural persons - for public revenue charges.
In his response, the Commissioner has presented only a general position, since the position on whether certain information should be publicly available, in a concrete case, based on the relevant facts and circumstances, is taken when deciding on appeals as a second instance authority.
The Commissioner has stressed in his response that when deciding on claims the Tax Administration, being the first instance authority, should take into consideration that the rights to free access to information, pursuant to Article 8 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance (LFAIPI), may exceptionally be subject to limitations prescribed under this Law if it is necessary in a democratic society for the purpose of protection against serious violations of an overriding interest based on the Constitution or law and that no provision of this Law shall be construed as to limit the rights to a greater extent than is strictly necessary.
In this sense, the Tax Administration is to evaluate the prevalence of interest, by applying the public interest test, if it has found that access to information may jeopardize a second, yet also a legitimate interest stemming from Article 9 or 14 of LFAIPI, and it is obligated to present convincing evidence that access to information is reasonably to cause serious legal and other consequences for the competing interest.
The Commissioner has highlighted that exemptions to the right to access to information envisaged under Articles 9 and 14 of the Law, are not absolute exemptions which existence would automatically entail the denial of access to information, but that these are relative exemptions, meaning that pursuant to Article 8 of the Law, it is estimated in each case whether other conditions for the limitation of rights have been met, as well. When it comes to exemptions relating to confidential information marked with a confidentiality designation (Article 9, item 5) LFAIPI, in addition to the formal requirement, the existence of the core material condition relating to real, not hypothetical adverse legal or other consequences for interests protected by confidentiality, whose existence must be proven by the public authority and override the public interest to know, is required as well.
The relevance of information on debts of economic operators (legal persons or entrepreneurs) relating to due unpaid taxes and contributions should be considered from the aspect of public interest and direct and indirect implications to citizens and society as a whole, in the event of their default.
When it comes to information on natural persons' debts, infringing upon privacy, it should be evaluated in terms of eligibility for exemptions from points 1-3 of Article 14 of the LFAIPI. When conditions for information to be made available are fulfilled, public authorities shall consider the implementation of one of the basic principles of personal data processing, the principle of proportionality regulated under Article 8 of the Personal Data Protection Law and ban access to the personal data which the public should not have an interest to know, by protecting only the personal data in case files such as the address data, PIN and the like, prior to access and in order to protect the data, pursuant to Article12 of the LFAIPI, one cannot prejudice the exercise of rights to access to other information.
From the Commissioner's response No. 011-00-00769/2012-03 dated November 19, 2012.
