Marking Personal Data Protection Day 2026

 

“This right will not exist if we have nothing to protect – if the data becomes public,” said Commissioner Milan Marinović in his opening speech at the marking of Personal Data Protection Day, which took place today at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia. He further emphasized that, given those who incessantly hunt for our personal data, we must not allow ourselves to be caught off guard. It is not easy to protect this right these days, and despite extraordinary efforts, we need the help of all those who can and want to help – and above all, the citizens themselves.

The Commissioner emphasized that one of the possible solutions to these challenges is to strengthen regional and form global cooperation within the E-Association of Personal Data Protection Authorities. Finally, he pointed out that the challenges have become global and that our response must be global.

Representatives of foreign delegations, the Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, HE Marcel Peško, and the Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia, Ms. Plamena Halačeva, emphasized that there are no major differences between the EU and here in terms of personal data protection. Therefore, we must fight together to protect our privacy.

Deputy Commissioner Sanja Unković emphasized in her introductory speech that in the new era, we focus more on the development of natural intelligence rather than artificial intelligence, the fact that people keep forgetting that natural intelligence invented artificial intelligence, and finally, that we should not forget that we are human. She also referred to the work of the Supervision Sector, which carried out more than 1,280 supervision inspections last year. In addition, the institution continued to conduct training courses for both students of short study programs in the field of data protection and public authorities and other business entities. She also emphasized that the Office of the Commissioner has achieved intensive international cooperation in the past period with the aim of better protecting this human right.

Miroslav Panić, Advisor to the Commissioner, speaking about the intervention to amend the Law on Personal Data Protection, emphasized that the Office of the Commissioner has undertaken the preparation of a model of a new Law on the Protection of Personal Data, which is to be submitted to the Working Group as our own proposal. The two goals are to draft a new law, easier to implement in a nomotechnical sense, and the second goal is to regulate institutes not covered in the law so far, such as video surveillance, data processing in artificial intelligence systems, and biometric and genetic data.

Finally, we awarded recognition for special contributions to personal data protection in the Republic of Serbia to the following institutions: the OSCE Mission to Serbia, the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), the Faculty of Law of the University of Belgrade, and the Directorate for Joint Affairs of the Republic Bodies.

The Deputy Commissioner invited all interested to familiarize themselves with the latest positions and opinions of the Commissioner in the latest publication, number XI, which can be downloaded in electronic form here.