Source: Dnevnik
Rodoljub Sabic is not completely satisfied with the Draft Law on Personal Data Protection
Commissioner for Information of Public information Rodoljub Sabic said yesterday that the efforts of the Serbian Government to provide legally for the field of personal data protection were important, but he also warned that that certain proposed arrangements could thwart guaranteed protection, and they should be reconsidered, amended or eliminated. He said to the Beta agency that the Draft Law was for the most part based on the standards which were affirmed in the democratic world, but he also said that it must not be ignored that it also contains some provisions which can be the basis for thwarting or even complete getting around of personal data protection in certain cases .This is above all true of the provision which, among other things, envisages possibility of denying possibility of access to data, collection of data, documentation or even premises to the body competent for personal data protection by security agencies for very laxly defined, 'bendable' reasons , said `abi to the Beta agency. According to him, the limitations envisaged in the Article 45 actually exclude the possibility of personal data protection, especially because it is not clear what could be the legal or logical basis for this arrangement . Since the body competent for the personal data protection should be the Commissioner for Information, it is particularly controversial that this provision opens the possibility for denying the right which was already guaranteed to him under the Law on Free Access to Information, and that is the unlimited right to access to every medium owned by a government body , emphasised `abi.
The Commissioner said that even in the case of excluded possibility of abuse of these provisions , which he considered unreal, they were opposite to the basic aim of passing the law - providing effective personal data protection .
Besides, such limitations are also obviously opposite to the authorizations and positions which independent bodies competent for personal data protection have and to the Protocol to the Convention on Protection of Persons against automatic personal data processing, which we signed and the ratification of which is also pending for the same reasons for which the passing of the Law was proposed in an expedited procedure , added Sabic. The Serbian Government submitted on 17 July to the parliamentary procedure the Draft Law on Personal Data Protection which provides for protection, processing and use of personal data and provides the right to privacy, it was announced after the session. The Draft Law was submitted in February to the procedure, but the Government withdrew it on the first session after its election with about seventy more proposals.
The Draft Law is a part of the set of laws whose adoption is necessary for the process of liberation of the visa regime and complete visa waiver for the EU.
