The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection estimates as justified the strong reaction of the Consumers Movement concerning the “obligation” of the citizens to give their personal data including their Personal No. to sellers when complaining or returning the goods. The Commissioner estimates that making those requests is not only, as estimated by the Consumers Movement, unethical and unacceptable, but most importantly it is obviously against the law.

The Commissioner considers that this is an unauthorized personal data processing and will ask the Ministry of Finance to amend the bylaw immediately, that is the form which represents the basis for that kind of processing. Concerning this the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic has also said:

“The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia through paragraph 42, guarantees the protection of personal data and stipulates that the personal data processing is regulated by the law.

There is no law which provides the obligation of the citizens to identify themselves when complaining on the goods and services i.e. when returning previously purchased goods, that is to give sellers any personal data especially not complex information such as Personal No.

That kind of “obligation” is not provided, but even if it were, that would not be in accordance with the Constitution and law, nor with the Decree on the Introduction of Fiscal cash Registers. That “obligation” was introduced into the system by a simple form labelled OC – Order for Correction, and passing the Rulebook on the manner of correction according the mentioned Decree, the then Minister of Finance and Economy declared the form a part of the Rulebook.

The situation where the citizen, although having fiscal charge slips when returning the goods, is asked to identify oneself, to leave one’s personal data and to put one’s signature is obviously very problematic both from the aspect of relevance and from the aspect of ethics and it is reasonably recognised by both the sellers and buyers as inexpedient and embarrassing.

However, the most important thing is that this kind of degradation of the basis for personal data processing from the level of law to the level of a mere form, is unacceptable and it enables the mass unauthorized and from the point of view of possible misuse highly risky personal data processing. Therefore, it is important that the Ministry of Finance harmonise the content of the above mentioned form with the Constitutional and legal solutions on the personal data protection immediately.”