Belgrade - Unfortunately, it is more than evident that our political parties are expressing a high degree of irresponsibility towards the rights of citizens. There are numerous examples of unacceptable relationship towards processing citizens' personal data, says for Danas Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, Rodoljub Sabic, in an interview on the topic whether in this election campaign privacy is more at stake than during the previous ones.
You recently wrote on Twitter that party activism demonstrates a drastic irresponsibility towards the rights of the citizens?
- I have presented the evaluation you are mentioning based on an especially awkward case of family to whose address came the maturation greetings card for a daughter who died several years ago. There are present examples of sending different circulatory party letters in a way showing that the political parties are using data bases which are otherwise owned by the authorities in power, and which have been established for completely different purposes. Sometimes this is about specially delicate databases, for instance, of pregnant women. Also present are the cases in which there is suspicion that the data collected for some other purposes are used for supporting a candidate or a political party. It is obvious that the abuse of citizen's personal data is intensified during various election campaigns. We have had especially drastic examples during the previous elections for National Minority Councils, when besides else, the Commissioner has also submitted a larger number of criminal charges due to abuse of personal data and forgeries done by various „activists". Unfortunately, there are no data whether someone of them has been sentenced, especially sentenced for what he has done.
The parties lead ferocious on-line fight for winning the voters, like it was, for instance the case during the campaign in the USA, when Barack Obama won? Are the rules on personal protection respected in social networks?
- The percentage of our citizens who participated in social networks is still significantly smaller than in the USA. However, it is in no way negligible. Speaking about the personal data protection we don't even closely know enough. This is the question we would have to deal further on. The sooner, the better.
Where do you see difference between the online campaign and abusing and harassing people?
- It is difficult to draw a clear border there, it hasn't been determined by any enactment. I think it makes sense to think about defining that border, for instance, of solutions that would be more or less similar to some solutions from the Consumer Protection Act. There, for instance, it is envisaged that multiple, unsolicited telephone contacts with the citizens, against one's will, by e-mail or other means of remote communication, represent so-called intrusive operations, which are unauthorized and punishable. If we found that it makes sense to protect the citizens from aggressive bidders of commercial and other products and services, it makes sense to think of similar protection against the bidders of political "products".
What would you recommend to the parties in the campaign, in what way should they fight for voters on the Internet, without abusing it?
- Internet, and therefore the social networks, are the reality of our age, a valuable reality, towards which one should have the right attitude, not abuse them. I think it is pointless and counter-productive to seed in social networks heaps of cheap and transparent self-advertising messages. But I think that the presence of recognizable party activists or sympathizers in social networks, pending that it is about people who are knowledgeable, ready and willing to rise the right issues and express real value attitudes can surely contribute not just to their popularity, but also to the parties' rating.
The number of complaints is growing
Data about the number of registered files of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection in the field of personal data protection show that the citizens' consciousness is growing. So in 2009 83 files have been registered, 250 in 2010, while last year there were 727 of them. For the first two months of this year we have over 270 files, meaning that by the end of 2012 there would probably be over 1,500 files. A part of those files pertains to problems from the field of e-communications, says Rodoljub Sabic.
