The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection stated that the Provincial Secretariat for Education, Administration and National Minorities of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, which acted on the decision of the Commissioner in a swift manner and erased personal data from the «Centralized School Database and the System for the Provision of Data on Grades to Parents», gave its contribution to the removal of significant risks of privacy violations.

In this regard, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic also stated the following:

«It would have been for the best if the Commissioner did not have to intervene in the first place, but, since the situation was not as such, it is commendable that the decision of the Commissioner was followed through in such a swift manner.

The Provincial Secretary for Education, Administration and National Minorities Mr. Andor Deli informed me in writing of the fulfillment of the measure stated in the Commissioner's decision. Based on the contract signed with the Provincial Secretariat, the specialized company erased the data from a total of 10 hard disk drives, out of which permanent deletion of data using software was performed on 9 hard disk drives, while one had to be destroyed physically due to a difference in characteristics before a commission.

Before this actually took place, and acting in accordance with the Commissioner's decision, the Provincial Secretariat placed on their official internet presentation www.obrazovanje.vojvodina.gov.rs the aforementioned decision of the Commissioner, which is still available, so any person can get acquainted with its context and the rationale behind it. Moreover, in accordance with the decision, before data deletion, WDV Soft closed all access to the database from local and outside networks, and, on the log-in page, published an announcement stating that, based on the Decision by the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, further data entry and data processing is forbidden.

All these activities resulted in the prevention of misuse of personal data of a great number of individuals – 75,721 students, 91,320 parents, 21,745 teachers, 7,000 school personnel, 4,003 members of school boards, and 482 school principals.

This is all well and good, but this entire activity will make complete sense only if it serves as a warning that these types of mishaps should not be repeated in a country which guarantees personal data protection in its Constitution.»