The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection has received a letter from the Ministry of Labor, Veteran and Social Issues, by which the Ministry informs him that the Republic Pension and Disability Insurance Fund has acted according to the Commissioner’s warning and changed procedures regarding personal data processing.

Requirements for exercising the right to old age pension, disability retirement, family pension after the death of the insured person and family pension after the death of the beneficiary of right, have been changed and placed on the Fund Portal, and change of the other requirements is pending. Organizational units of the Fund have been informed about the performed changes and mandatory method of acting by the employees regarding the submitted applications.

The changed requirements, among else quote what proofs are necessary for deciding, and it has been especially stressed that the identity of the applicant shall be proven by gaining insight into the persona ID card, and not by keeping the photocopy of it.

The Commissioner evaluates as good quick reaction to his warning, of both the Ministry and the Fund. This specially pertains to discontinuation of the photocopying practice and keeping of the citizens’ ID cards.

The Commissioner warns also on this occassion, that otherwise widespread practice of copying and retention of personal identity documents of citizens in situations where this is not expressly provided by the law, constitutes unlawful processing of data, which is a punishable offense. Based on such practice the citizens are unnecessarily exposed to spending time and money, and what is even more important, by forming many often huge collections of copies of personal documents, problems related to their preservation are triggered and the risk of abuse multiplies.