MANS: There was no abuse of registration numbers, they should be returned to the register

The Agency for the Protection of Personal Data has never received a report from any natural or legal person in Montenegro due to the publication of registration numbers on the websites of the Tax Administration and the Real Estate Administration of Montenegro, which further confirms the suspicions that the removal of registration numbers was done not to prevent misuse of that data, but to successfully cover up behind-the-scenes actions that are carried out in the business of companies and real estate transactions through these two institutions, according to MANS.

MANS is after the removal of registration numbers from the websites Tax Administration i Real Estate Administration requested from the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data information on how many citizens or legal entities have reported to that institution suspicions that their personal identification number, which is located on the websites of the register of companies and the cadastre, is being misused.

"Hiding the identification number in the way that the Tax Administration and the Real Estate Administration did, is a huge service to criminals and those who help them so that their businesses and assets remain hidden from the Montenegrin public."

Agency for the Protection of Personal Data

On the basis of these data, MANS has so far discovered numerous scandals and filed dozens of criminal charges on suspicion of corruption and organized crime.

"Precisely those reports are the only motive for these institutions to delete the identity numbers from their registers and thus slow down the fight against corruption, and not the protection of citizens from misuse of their identity numbers. The identity numbers were unilaterally removed this summer, without anyone from the Tax Administration and the of real estate did not say how the identity number can be misused or stated the case that happened when it comes to the data found on their websites," according to MANS.

On the other hand, as it was announced, the benefits of the public identity number are known to everyone and are documented by hundreds of pages of evidentiary material awaiting processing by the prosecution and the police, "which was possible to collect thanks to the fact that the data on individuals and companies were publicly available available".

"Hiding the identity number in the way that the Tax Administration and the Real Estate Administration did, is a huge service to criminals and those who help them so that their business and assets remain hidden from the Montenegrin public. The only thing that these institutions have not yet done is to delete both the names and surnames from their registers under the pretext that this is also personal information, but even without that, both registers already have all the characteristics of secret, not public, registers," the NGO said.

MANS called on the Tax Administration and the Real Estate Administration to urgently return to their registers the data on the identity numbers of individuals and legal entities, because it has already been shown not only that the security of citizens' data is not at risk, but that there is a direct and very concrete public interest in that data being made public available to everyone.