Source: "Blic"
“Please provide us with the records of outgoing and incoming communications for the following phone number… for the period from… to… 2010.” This “laconic” request was sent to the address of one of our large mobile phone operators. When the operator refused to fulfill the request, stating that the request was not in accordance with the law, and that, in order to fulfill it, a decision of a court of law was necessary, the person who submitted the request, the Deputy Prosecutor from a city in inland Serbia, repeated it and called the operator to responsibility. The operator sought the protection of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection.
The Commissioner, in turn, asked the State Public Prosecutor to intervene. The conversation between the Commissioner and the State Public Prosecutor showed that they share the opinion and view of Article 41 of the Constitution, which states that the confidentiality of communication is inviolable, while derogations shall be allowed only based on decision of the court of law, and that the Criminal Proceedings Law emphasizes the fact that the measure of automatic computer search of personal and other related data and its electronic processing can only be ordered by an investigative judge.
During our meeting, the State Public Prosecutor phoned the Prosecutor’s Office, where the disputed request originated from, and ordered an immediate withdrawal of the submitted request, and stated that, in the future, if and when the conditions are met, only requests with a previously obtained court warrant can be submitted.
The problem was so “easy” to solve, that it could be said it was not worth the attention. But, it is not so, on the contrary. In the future, we will have one less entity aspiring to access citizens’ communication data without any control. In the process of a slow and difficult “departure” from believes according to which, when it comes to the privacy of citizens, the authorities can do whatever they want, the resistance by the operator and the reaction of the State Public Prosecutor should be remembered as something very important. As that saying by Churchill goes – “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
