Source: "Politika"
Some fifteen days ago one of our co-citizens A.H. has submitted a complaint to the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, due to infringing of the provisions of the Personal Data Protection Law. In that complaint he quoted that he has received a decision of City Administration for New Belgrade Municipality, by which he has been enrolled into a special voters registration list for one of the national minorities, although he has never submitted a request to be enrolled there. He quoted that he considers his data have been abused, and he asked the Commissioner to undertake measures in order to protect his rights.
Based on quotations presented in the A.H.'s complaint, according to provisions of Article 54 of the Personal Data Protection Act, the Commissioner has through his authorized persons performed official supervision over implementation and execution of the Personal Data Protection Act in the City Administration for New Belgrade Municipality. In the implemented supervision procedure, the Commissioner has determined that there is for sure base for suspicion that unknown perpetrators have in an unauthorized way acquired and used personal data of A.H. citizen, for the purpose for which those data haven’t been collected, processed and used, that is, for which they haven’t been intended. Besides that, it is equally sure that there is basis for suspicion that the signature of A.H. citizen on the application for enrolling into special voters’ registration list of national minority, which has been submitted on prescribed form, has been forged.
Namely, authorized persons of the Commissioner have during performing the supervision procedure in the City Municipality of New Belgrade gained insight into all relevant documents, and they have acknowledged that in the documents, besides else is a request for enrolling into special voters registration list, on the prescribed form. In the lower right corner of the form, in the place envisioned for that has been written by hand in Cyrillic letters that the applicant is A.H. But when the authorized persons of the Commissioner have presented a photocopy of that application to A.H., he has undoubtedly and strictly once again confirmed that the signature on that form isn’t his signature.
This story is interesting because the authorized persons of the Commissioner didn't stick to just the „case of“ A.H. They have during performing of the supervision, also determined that total of 276 persons have been enrolled in the special voters registration list for the national minority in which he was enrolled, and that subsequent deletion from that list has been requested by 37 persons. Although according to the law, they do not have to quote the reasons due to which they request deleting from the special voters registration list, it is still more or less obvious that the reasons are identical as in the „case of“ A.H. Besides that, the statements that the Commissioner's authorized persons took from the officials in charge of the voters registration lists, confirm that those 37 persons gave affidavits that they have not requested enrollment and that they did not sign the requests for enrolling into special voters registration list. So, speaking in the most moderate way, there are grounded suspicions that the data of those 37 citizens have been collected and processed in an unauthorized way, and that their signatures have also been falsified. Therefore the Commissioner has asked for and he received from the City Municipality of New Belgrade a list of those 37 citizens and relevant data from the files in which it has been determined about „their“ requests for enrolling into special voters registration list, and pressed criminal charges against them to the Public Prosecutor's Office in charge.
Whether 38 criminal offenses have been performed of unauthorized personal data collection, from Article 146 of the Criminal Code and 38 criminal offenses of personal identification document forgery from Article 355 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code? We should believe that the judiciary shall give the right and quick answer to this question.
But there are still some more questions necessitating answer. What does, for instance mean the data that out of total of 276 persons, which number has been enrolled into special voters registration list for one national minority in the Municipality of New Belgrade, only a smaller number of them, some 80 have been personally enrolled into that list, and for the majority that job has been done by „activists“. Do we know (or not) who is behind those „diligent“ activists? What does the data reveal that out of 200 so enrolled, even one fifth (and that is minimum, because there are surely people who haven't reacted to their enrollment into the voters registration list, although they didn't request it) was, at least to say, problematic. Did this happen only in New Belgrade Municipality, one of more than 160 of our municipalities, and whether it has happened only to members of one of 16 national minorities, for which special voters’ registration lists have been established?
Doesn't assumed, logical answers to these questions point to the conclusion that the „imagination“ in political „activism“ has overstepped the limits which shouldn't be overstepped at all in a democratic society?
Privacy and the right to legal personal data protection occupy a high place on value scale in a regulated society. Those values must not be challenged by any political party or political „activism“. And the „case“ that I write about is not the first in any way, but is just one of frequent examples of the underestimating, rude behavior towards those values. The state is obliged to oppose that in all possible ways. Quick and severe reaction of the persecution authorities and of judiciary is not the only, but is surely a necessary way.
