Source: “Blic”
It is good that the media pay more attention to personal data protection. But not so well is that the media sometimes choosing “juicy “topics, divert attention from much more important subjects. That is the case with critical assessment of the Commissioner for Information and Personal Data Protection on Unique Master Citizen Number (UMCN), given at journalists’ request. I do really consider that the flaw of UMCN is that being seen, gives more personal data that it is necessary and being unchangeable increases the risk of abuse. However, that doesn’t mean we should change it immediately. Even more that UMCN is our main problem in this field. I wish it was.
We are facing a lot of problems. The same ones which all countries in transition have experienced and resolutions may not be subject of improvisation. Holders, deadlines, means, responsibility for failure must be clearly defined in advance. Therefore, the Commissioner, learning from good experience of others, in collaboration with the EU Commission experts prepared and delivered to the Government an appropriate strategy. Unfortunately, it has not been adopted yet. Its implementation involves establishment and training of bodies that should ensure that data protection standards do not remain on paper but to be actually applied. It also includes amendments to hundreds of laws and regulations in order to harmonize them with EU laws. And extensive work on education of both officers in charge of personal data processing and citizens is also involved. Education is extremely important (some countries have even changed school programs), especially in a country where UMCN is publicly announced all around, widespread photocopied and scanned personal documents, stolen, with no adequate response, computer hard discs on which there is data of tens of thousands of people etc.
The establishment of normal attitude towards the privacy requires the existence of data processors with the corresponding notion of the importance of privacy, but also “the critical mass” of citizens who will not automatically comply with every, even the obviously excessive or groundless request to provide information about themselves, citizens aware of their rights and ready to insist on them.
