Source: Vecernje Novosti
WHO IS ABLE ASK FOR PERSONAL DATA AND IS OUR PRIVACY THREATENED
15 penalties filed. Sabic: Collecting data is legal exclusively on two grounds
Have you ever wondered who owns your personal data? Banks, hospitals, all the companies you worked for, schools and kindergardens your children attend, Public transportation company, Institute of public health, library, travel agencies you travelled with, Ministry of Internal Affairs, recruiting department, Federal voting committee…
Who has for one reason or another made a photocopy of your identification card? And have those copies been destroyed or are these data still being stored somewhere and for what reason?
How many times you were taken your credit card to be ”scanned” behind a bar and charged? Are you sure that no one has ever abused data from your credit card and ordered some products online, for instance?
- At a rough estimate, there is a million of smaller and larger personal databases in Serbia – claims Rodoljub Sabic, the Trustee for public information and personal data protection.
He has recently ordered Council of german minority and Bosnjak national council to destroy databases collected during elections for minority councils.
- Processing of personal data may only be performed by legally authorised persons or on the consent of the owner of the data. If none of the two conditions are met, collecting of the data is illegal – sais Sabic.
Since law does not provide that “subjects of the private law” can make parallel voters lists without the consent of the people involved, the Trustee ordered national councils to eliminate those databases. According to him, they cooperated with inspection and bases were destroyed in front of the committee.
- They believed they were legitimate when collecting personal data, by following the wrong instruction of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights. So far we intervened in these two cases, for which we received concrete complaints, therefore I ordered inspectors to be sent out on the field. Currently there is one more ongoing inspection activity for the purpose of establishing relevant facts in connection with possible existence of similar database related to Hungarian minorities.
The Trustee office has so far filed 15 criminal complaints for the same various malversations with voters lists of the national minorities and that only in 10% of the local governments. Real number of personal data abuse on those elections will never be determined since many citizens have upon receiving invitations to vote, inspite of never asking to be subscribed to minority lists, thrown away vote papers commenting “Ridiculous!” and not taking any serious action for the occassion. Only small number turned to the trustee office.
There are many ways to abuse someone’s personal data, especially if they involve information on illnesses, sexual orientation or marital status, for which one may become a victim of blackmail or verbal abuse. Data on bank account statement can especially be misused and, of course, access codes.
In Western world, accents Sabic, when speaking of identity theft it is exactly spoken of personal data abuse. American federal trade committee, largest institution for world market surveilance, creates a rank-list of “biggest frauds” every year. For eight years top ranking is identity theft! It is yet to come in Serbia.
Entrefilet: A MILLION FOR PENALTY
MONETARY penalty for unathorised use and abuse of personal data might reach the sum of million dinnars, and in some cases such “processing” can be treated as a criminal deed.
Surveilance over this sector should be performed by an idependant body, that is the Trustee, who forms special inspection. There are many more inspectors in the world than here, but things will have to change in Serbia considering we have taken on responsibilty to harmonize our regulations in the sector with European.
ESPECIALLY SENSITIVE DATA
THE LAW on personal data protection also provides a category of sensitive data – on national and religious adherence, health condition, supplemental security income…
- More rigid regime should be provided for processing of such data. Therefore, the legislator enacted that the Government shall by special regulation arrange the system of processing such data in six month period from the date of law enforcement. The agreement period has expired several times since then, and the regulation hasn’t been brought yet – sais Sabic.
WHAT IS IT ALL THAT YOU HAVE TO KNOW
- NOONE, except legally directly authorised persons (and those are few), shouldn’t be allowed to ask for the photocopy of your personal documents.
- When someone asks for a document, they must explain why.
- The company you work for may use your data for salary payment or pension and disability insurance, but not for any other purpose without your consent (for instance, it must not give it to the companies that would later overwhelm you with commercial adds)
- Everyone has right to know that their data exist in someone’s database, has right to have the insight and make corrections if data are not accurate.
- Ask the waiter or a retailer to “scan” your credit card exclusively in front of you.
