The Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance was published in the "Official Gazette" on 5 November 2004 and entered into force on the eighth day of its publication, on 13 November 2004. This day marks 10 years since the Law entered into force and in that regard Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection said the following:
The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection submitted to the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia a request for authentic interpretation of Article 3, paragraph 1 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance.
This provision of the Law stipulates that the following authorities have the duties under the Law on Free Access to Information: government bodies, territorial autonomy authorities, local self-government authorities and organizations vested with public powers.
The reason for filing the request for authentic interpretation are complaints lodged with the Commissioner against notaries public, which raise the issue whether notaries public have the status of a public authority within the meaning of Article of the Law, i.e. whether the duties under this Law include them.
Emphasizing that this was the problem he had already warned about several years ago, when the phenomenon of natural persons vested with public powers (notaries public, private bailiffs) was emerging and should have been addressed by amendments to the Law which underwent the assembly procedure in late 2012 and were subsequently withdrawn, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic also said the following in that regard:
In connection with the increased public interest in the activities in the Tax Administration (TA), the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection said that he had initiated the procedure of enforcement of the Law on Personal Data Protection (LPDP) as early as eight days ago.
The direct cause for initiation of the procedure was an individual report stating that the media were given access to and published data from a tax return, that is, data which should be available only to authorized persons in the TA. However, during the enforcement procedure, employees in TA gave the Commissioner's authorized officers information which could be relevant for the very poor and extremely worrying standard of overall treatment of taxpayers' data.
The Commissioner's authorized officers were informed that those data were also submitted to the Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, although the TA failed to inform the Commissioner about them sooner.
Setting aside, at least on this occasion, the question whether it is good that the data which are yet to be verified by the Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs have been published or why the public has not been informed about them before initiation of the procedure by the Commissioner, the Commissioner believes it is necessary that the competent authorities (the Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs) should check all relevant facts as soon as possible both regarding the rights of individual taxpayers and particularly regarding possible inadmissible mass invasion of taxpayers' personal data files and should inform the public about that.
The Commissioner will, within his sphere of competence, take measures he is authorized to take as soon as possible and the public will be informed about it as always.
In that regard, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic also said he following:
The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection will initiate enforcement of the Law on Personal Data Protection (LPDP) in the Business Registers Agency.
The direct cause for the enforcement procedure was information that several days ago the Business Registers Agency introduced a procedure which includes recording who accessed the archive of the Business Registers Agency and in which firms they showed interested by requiring visitors to fill in a special request before having access to documentation, thus forming a database on the basis of which it is possible to subsequently asses the level of interest of journalists or citizens in particular businesses.
Emphasizing that he will require from the Business Registers Agency to state the legal basis, meaning and purpose of such data processing, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic also said the following in that regard:
