The Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information (AZLP) published the names of citizens in an official publication without their consent, even though the protection of privacy is its legal obligation, according to, among other things, an initiative to the Administrative Committee, which requested that parliamentary body to initiate the procedure for the dismissal of the President of the Council of that institution. Željko Rutović.
Along with the initiative, which Vijesti had access to, copies of the publication's pages were also submitted, where the names of citizens who requested information under the Law on Free Access to Information, as well as the persons for whom the information was requested, were published. According to the material, the publication's editor-in-chief is Rutović.
The Administrative Board did not respond to questions from "Vijesti" about how they will decide on this initiative.
The AZLP emphasizes that this is an unintentional technical error that "given the large volume of selected material in the process of sending the text to print, and without prior proofreading and correction, an unintentional technical error occurred that we noticed after the publication was published."
They also claim that they have initiated an internal procedure to determine the circumstances and responsibilities at work.
"...On which occasion, the person responsible for anonymization emphasized in his statement that the omission was 'made out of negligence, a technical error, and that the text was not completely anonymized, but rather partially anonymized.' Noting that the internal statement is a matter of responsibility and professional standards of the employee, we emphasize that the publication did not have mass distribution, which in practice is understood as the availability of data to the general public or a large number of unauthorized persons," claim the AZLP.
This institution published a publication entitled "Personal Data Protection (Decisions, Opinions and Positions of the Agency Council 2022-2025, Selection)" on the occasion of Data Protection Day - January 28, which they also informed the public about on their official website.
Initiative
According to the material submitted to the Assembly Administrative Committee on the initiative of March 9, page 144 lists the name and surname of the person whose employment data was requested from a state-owned company. On page 202, it is stated that “the first-instance body in the contested decision denied access to information related to the submission of complete documentation related to the request of the Police Administration to the Health Center ... for referring a person ... (“Vijesti” will not publish the municipality and name) for a psychiatric examination…”. On page 279 of the publication, the name and address of a Podgorica resident whose request for free access to information was partially accepted are published, and about a hundred pages later, the inheritance proceedings after the death of a citizen are also mentioned, whose identity was revealed, and thus the identity of the brother who requested certain information is also concluded.
The initiative recalls that Article 25 of the Personal Data Protection Act stipulates that officials and other persons who process personal data shall act exclusively on the instructions of the head of the body, or the responsible person in the legal entity. It also states that Article 55, among other things, stipulates that the president or member of the Council may be dismissed if they violate the obligation to keep personal data safe.
"...Since (Rutović), by making information containing personal data available, without the consent of the natural persons to whom such personal data relates, or without a legal basis, violated the obligation to maintain the confidentiality of personal data that he learned about while performing his duties..., this means that the condition set out in Article 55, paragraph 1, item 4 of the Law for establishing his liability has been met," the initiative states.
Publication withdrawn, apology to citizens
The AZLP told "Vijesti" that immediately after noticing an error in the publication, "which did not have a large circulation - 150 copies, the management of the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information withdrew it, made corrections and printed a new, revised edition."
"The publisher notes that the publication was not otherwise available in online format and that it did not have mass distribution," the AZLP said.
They point out that an internal procedure has been initiated to determine the circumstances and responsibility in the work, and that the person responsible for the anonymization stated in a statement that the omission was "made out of negligence, a technical error, and that the text was not fully anonymized, but rather partially."
"With the note that the internal statement is a matter of responsibility and professional standards of the employee, we emphasize that the publication did not have mass distribution, which in practice is understood as the availability of data to the general public or a large number of unauthorized persons. With the statement that the content and preparation of the publication were autonomously determined by the editorial staff, and that the Agency Council did not consider or adopt the content of the publication, we use this opportunity to publicly apologize and regret the technical error that occurred," they said.
See more:
Download the app and follow the news
FOLLOW US ON
