Source: “Dnevnik”
The case of publishing audio recording from the meting of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians in Novo Orahovo in which conversers speak about a parallel list of Hungarians in Vojvodina and how it can be used in the elections, has shaken public in the province, however no officials have yet come out on the issue. Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians filed a complaint against an N.N. person for secret recording, which is prohibited by the law, but denies its authenticity. The Trustee for public information Rodoljub Sabic sais for “Dnevnik” that the case is interesting from several different points of view, but from the standpoint of his position, it’s important for him that the recording content refers to existence of a personaldata base which should not be existing.
- If authorised personnel of the Trustee for public information - inspectors on the spot confirm existence of the base, my first action will be to order it’s destruction, while other possible actions would depend on circumstances, that is on reasons that brought to law violation – announced Sabic. - Various factors might be in question: from ignorance or wrong instructions given by the organs of authority, up to the evil intentions. Some of them might have a penalty or even criminal responsibility as a consequence.
Sabic sais that various irregularities and law violations have been noted in procedures conducted according to citizens’ complaints or supervised by the officials:
- In the case of National Council of German Minority and Bosnjak National Council, a formation of private personal data base has been determined - sais Sabic. - There were also other law violations apart from forming such parallel personal databases: from frauds and trust abuse up to the criminal actions of unauthorised processing of personal database and forgeries. I believe that such things occurred in relation to special voters lists of more or less all minorities.
Trustee ordered German National Council and Bosnjak Council to eliminate parallel lists, and claims for “Dnevnik” that they have done it.
- Committees have been formed, which destroyed databases, while documentation on it, including signatures of all committee members, have been delivered to the Trustee – explains our interlocutor, and points out that for the time being there is no exact data on whether some other minority party has created double lists. He claims, however, that bearing in mind all the circumstances, it can by no means be excluded. On the contrary. - Main problems were not caused by the law itself but by the Instruction on the procedure of subscribing to special voters list of the national minority, which was introduced by the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights. Introducing the Instruction deviated from the principle that right to subscribe to voters list is a personal right a person fulfills itself. The Instruction allowed anyone able to attain necessary data on citizens to file applications for subscribing to special voters lists “on their behalf” and without their knowledge, even against their will, while municipal authorities did not have the right to ask for their mandate or examine identity – explains the Trustee for information.
- In some cases individuals filed applications for more hundreds, even thousands of persons. Should we be surprised that after such regard of subscription into special voters lists, occurred a real explosion of “activism” and that there exist parallel sets of personal data?Sabic pointed out he didn’t want to deal with Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, but he considered neccassary for the state to significantly change attitude towards such an important issue.
- I remind you of the fact that data on nationality according to article 16 of the Law on personal data protection are classified as highly sensitive data, which by no means implies the kind of attitude that has been applied, but on the contrary, it implies special conditions for their processing and protection. The Law on personal data protection stipulates that in a six month period Government should by special decision regulate question of protecting highly sensitive data, however, although the six month period expired a few times already, such decision hasn’t been made, thus making proclaimed special protection a dead letter – pointed out Sabic.
