The Institute of Alternatives is dissatisfied with the adopted law on the National Security Agency (ANB), because, as they said, it significantly limits the constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy and the right to protection of personal data.
Dina Bajramspahić, a public policy researcher in that organization, said that they could not be satisfied with the final solutions adopted by the Assembly, and in particular with the provision that the director of the Agency approves access to registers and databases of legal entities.
"In this case, the constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy and the right to protection of personal data are significantly limited. That's why we insisted that a difference be made in relation to the bases of state bodies and a higher level of committee be introduced, by the Supreme Court, for the implementation of this measure", said Bajramspahić to the MINA agency.
The Alternative Institute, Action for Human Rights, the Center for Civic Education and the Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector pointed out before the adoption of the law that certain provisions of that act drastically threaten human rights guaranteed by the Constitution, laws and ratified international conventions.
MANS has announced that it will submit an initiative to the Constitutional Court for the review of the constitutionality of the provisions that give too broad powers to the Agency and prevent judicial protection from possible abuses and violations of human rights, after the changes to the law are published in the Official Gazette.
Bajramspahić pointed out that the databases and registers of legal entities also include medical records of citizens, bank data, data of vulnerable and marginalized groups, "in other words, data subject to abuse".
"Therefore, they should have been additionally protected in such a way that a body outside the ANB would confirm the legitimacy of the application of such a measure. We have the same attitude when it comes to electronic location determination of users of telecommunication networks, monitoring and observation in the open air," she stated.
Bajramspahić believes that in the coming period, the bodies authorized to supervise ANB, namely, in addition to the Security and Defense Committee, the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data and the Ombudsman, should check through direct controls and inspection of cases, whether the provisions of the law which citizens' rights are protected, adequately applied.
Now, she added, it remains to wait for the Constitutional Court to review the problematic norms.
"Nevertheless, we must point out that three of our proposals have been adopted, and we believe that their implementation, in the long term, will enable further reforms of ANB. Namely, it is prescribed that, from now on, the internal control of the ANB submits its annual work report to the Committee for Security and Defense", said Bajramspahić.
She stated that they hope that in this way the Assembly will put additional pressure on the internal control to exercise its powers, check the legality of the actions of officials, and prosecute them for all forms of abuse.
"Secondly, the right of each member of the Security Committee to request data in the possession of ANB was strengthened, by deleting the article of the Law on ANB that gave this right to the Committee as a whole. This meant that only the majority in the committee could receive data from the ANB, which put the members of the opposition in a disadvantageous position," explained Bajramspahić.
According to her, the options that are available to the Board and the members of the Board when it comes to the supervision of the ANB have now been completed, "so we hope that the deputies will control it more in the coming period, and thus help build citizens' trust in the Agency." .
Bajramspahić also pointed out that there is a legally prescribed procedure for destroying data that is not of a security nature, thus preventing excessive (collateral) collection of information.
"This protects the rights of "related persons" and the ANB is legally obliged to destroy personal, family, and all other data that were not the goal of applying the measures," she said.
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