The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, after completing a survey of whether the ministries of the Republic of Serbia were complying with their obligations stemming from the Law on Personal Data Protection, issued several appropriate warnings and filed a number of minor offence charges.

The warnings were issued and the minor offence charges filed against the Ministry of Finance; the Ministry of Health; the Ministry of Trade and Services; the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning; the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Water Management; the Ministry of Energy and Mining; the Ministry for Infrastructure; the Ministry of Science and Technological Development; the Ministry of Education; the Ministry of Youth and Sports; the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society; the Ministry of Defense; the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy; and, the Ministry of Culture.

The minor offence charges were filed against the ministers themselves, as they are the responsible individuals at the ministries.

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

«The fact that a great number of minor offence charges was filed against individuals in high positions, the ministers, should not give the entire affair a sensationalistic context. The ministers are objectively responsible in the eyes of the law, but, besides them, there are a number of individuals working at the ministries who could have, should have and had to fulfill their legal obligations. It is very important to see the survey of the work of the ministries as another very serious warning of the fact that we absolutely cannot be satisfied with the current state of affairs in the field of personal data protection.

The survey and the analysis did not touch upon all of the legal obligations, but just two basic obligations – the obligation to keep the personal data records in accordance with the align ordinance which was passed by the Government of the Republic of Serbia itself, and the obligation to forward the aforementioned records to the Commissioner for the purposes of establishing a central registry of personal data records.

It is very worrying that the analysis and the survey, which were announced long before they actually happened, showed that, in two years after the Law on Personal Data Protection was passed, the majority of the ministries failed to fulfill their most basic obligations stemming from the Law and the Ordinance that the Government itself passed. Is it logical to expect a more responsible attitude of other stakeholders from the public and the private sector, which also have certain obligations, stemming from the Law on Personal Data Protection?

Of course, we cannot be satisfied with the current state of affairs, both from the viewpoint of obligations to the EU undertaken by signing the Stabilization and Accession Agreement, and, more importantly, from the viewpoint of the protection of human rights guaranteed by laws and the Constitution. The current state of affair has to change, and, in this context, the question of minor offence responsibility is not the only or the most important one, but it is unavoidable.»