News

Commissioner Milan Marinović and Deputy Commissioner Sanja Unković are participating in the European Workshop on Personal Data Protection Case Management, held in Tallinn, Estonia, from 4 to 6 December 2024.

The workshop discusses cases in video surveillance, artificial intelligence, impact assessment, complex case management, particularly sensitive personal data, personal data processing on social networks, new technologies, and information security.

On Tuesday, November 26, 2024, lecturers from the Office of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Sofija Radojicic, Marin Cetinic, and Marko Milosevic, held training on access to information of public importance and personal data protection for the personnel of the Rectorate and faculties within the University of Kragujevac. The main reason was to raise awareness about the proper application of these laws in light of the increased requests for access to information filed through lawyers with the power of attorney and the challenges in the appropriate application of personal data protection.

The training was attended by 40 employees, mostly faculty secretaries, information officers, and data protection officers. Among the topics standing out were the correct interpretation of deadlines for acting on requests for access to information, exercising the right to data protection, and its possible restrictions. This training was also used to announce the soon opening of the Office of the Commissioner in Kragujevac, facilitating more direct access to the institution and improving the exercise of rights under our jurisdiction. The Commissioner has so far held training courses at the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad, with invitations sent to all state universities expecting more training courses aimed at this target group by the end of the year.

On November 25, 2024, Commissioner Milan Marinović and Deputy Commissioner Sanja Unković completed their lecture series within the Studies For Knowledge Innovation program – The Right To Personal Data Protection, implemented at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade.

This is the first study program for knowledge innovation at some faculty in the Republic of Serbia dealing with personal data protection. Lecturers in these studies include professors of the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, the Deputy Commissioner, and other prominent experts from practice.

From 13 to 15 November 2024, three new training courses were held for employees of the Police Departments (PDs) in Prokuplje, Leskovac, and Vranje. Aleksandar Kocić Ranđelović from the Commissioner’s Office, Assistant Secretary-General – Sector for Education and Certification, and Dragan Obradović from the Secretariat of the Ministry of Interior conducted the training courses. The OSCE Mission to Serbia supports the training courses within the realization of its project activities. The great interest of the Ministry of Interior in ​​the personal data protection field is confirmed by 217 participants in the three PDs mentioned earlier, namely: 64 in the PD Prokuplje, 71 in the PD Leskovac, and 84 in the PD Vranje. Police representatives were introduced primarily to data processing principles and their importance for lawful and proper personal data processing.

The discussion held provided insight into the uncertainties of the application of the Law on Personal Data Protection and the application of other regulations in the police, including the polemic about the police powers to collect data on individual’s identification checks and provide them upon a justified request from other natural persons, as well as the question of whether consent can be used as a legal basis for acting, i.e. when the use of information system during a person identity check is justified. Also, through talks and examples from practice, it was showcased to the Ministry of Interior members when they are supposed to be acting in general versus in the so-called special data processing regime. The lecture also discussed protection measures in the Ministry of Interior, focusing on their importance, primarily the individual and strong password usage, and especially log files for held accountability in acting.