Due to frequent citizens’ appeals, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection has appealed today to all the political parties to refrain from any activities during their pre-election campaign which are inconsistent with the standards set by the Personal Data Protection Law, and he has warned all the authorities not to approve such activities in any way.

The Commissioner has warned that the use of personal data collections, especially those owned by the authorities, like for example voters lists, for the purposes for which they are not compiled, represents an unauthorized data processing, an offence penalized by law and under certain circumstances even a criminal act. The Commissioner has called on all the people involved to refrain from such activities and not only because of the threatened penalties, but to give at least minimal contribution to improving the bad condition in the field of personal data protection.

In relation to this the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic has also said:

“Lately we have had frequent telephone and electronic appeals and formal complaints from the citizens who experience some of the political parties’ activities as nuisance, violation of privacy and even violation of the Personal Data Protection Law.

The citizens are especially annoyed by the situations when, as they claim, the political activists coming to their homes for propaganda or research activities, evidently have all their personal data and persons living at that particular address.

The possibility that even though they are not the members of any political party and that they have not given consent for anyone to use their personal data, the activists obtain the data and use them for any number of purposes to some citizens suggests making the lists of the (dis)obedient, upsets the citizens and they rightly recognize the violation of the law in such actions.

The Commissioner will, in certain cases, initiate the inspection but bearing in mind highly limited personnel resources which are at his disposal he appeals to and expects from all the relevant bodies, and the political parties and above all the authorities to give their contribution to meeting the standards set by the Personal Data Protection Law.”