Source: "Blic"
Commissioner for Information and Personal Data Protection Rodoljub Sabic said that Serbia lagged behind its neighbouring countries in personal data protection.- We lag far behind the neighbouring countries, not only regarding standards, but also regarding human resources because few people in this field could be called experts. It will be a serious problem to establish the Office - Mr. Sabic, who from 1 January supervises the implementation of the Law on Personal Data Protection, said to Beta. Mr. Sabic said that the Commissioner could not do it alone although he is responsible for that and added that the implementation of the Law requires organized effort of virtually entire Government, in the first place executive. He said that the adoption of the Law was one of the preconditions for visa waiver program with the EU and emphasized that Serbia faced grave violations of the right to privacy and personal rights.
- I think that we are not aware at all of the extent of violations of the right to privacy and the right to personal data protection- Mr. Sabic said. He added that he prepared an instrument on organization of "much larger and much more complex Office than the existing one" and that he submitted it to the Assembly, as well as that the Administrative Committee endorsed the proposal. According to him, after his intervention and support form the media, the Serbian Government increased the resources from the budget for that service.
The Commissioner said that the fundamental principle of use of personal data was that "the use is allowed only with your consent and without your consent it is allowed only when it is expressly envisaged by the law, for the purposes for which it was envisaged and to the extent necessary to achieve that purpose."
Mr. Sabic said the Privatization Agency was not authorized to publish unique personal identification numbers (JMBG) of a large number of citizens and warned that no one may toy up with citizens' rights.
