In the period between the 1st and the 7th of February 2011, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, through the authorized personnel by the Commissioner – the Inspectors, performed the monitoring over the implementation of the Law on Personal Data Protection within fourteen institutions that are a part of the Government of the Republic of Serbia.
The monitoring was performed with regards to the obligation of the institutions to compile records of personal data databases in accordance with the Law, and submit the aforementioned records to the Commissioner in order for them to be entered into the Central Register.
Nine institutions (the Environmental Protection Agency, the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering, the Customs Administration, the Games of Chance Administration, the Public Debt Administration, the Treasury Administration, the Criminal Sanctions Administration, the Veterinary Administration, and the Administration for Measures and Precious Metals) have violated the Law by completely failing to comply with its provisions and the obligations stemming from it, and requests for the initiation of the minor offence proceedings against the officials managing the aforementioned institutions have been submitted.
In this regard, the Commissioner Mr. Rodoljub Sabic also stated the following:
“The previous monitoring was announced and performed last year. Since we believe that the issue of responsibility should be addressed at the highest instances of the state, the monitoring activities were first initiated in the ministries of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, and resulted in the submission of requests for the minor offence proceedings initiation against 14 ministers in December of last year.
During the just completed monitoring, we inspected the institutions within the ministries, and the result is worrying yet again – 9 requests for the initiation of the minor offence proceedings have been submitted against the managers of these institutions.
The need for the initiation of the proceedings is undeniable, because of the failure to fulfill the legal obligations stemming from the Law. However, the facts show that we are faced with a problem that, even if the align judicial institutions acted on the submitted requests with due diligence, cannot be solved only in this manner.
Because it is not only the lack of responsibility, but also the lack of capacity of the institutions to fulfill their obligations that are an integral part of the democratic world. The implementation of these democratic standards into our legal system entails more than just their copying them into our laws. Those who are in charge of implementing the laws need to be acquainted with the essence, the content, and the scope of the aforementioned standards, they have to understand them, and believe in their value. For this, they obviously need additional educational training.
It is necessary, at the state level, to organize and conduct an all-encompassing action with an aim of capacity building of the state institutions with regards to the fulfillment of their obligations stemming from the Law on Personal Data Protection.”
