Dnevni avaz: When you receive to the home address the mail from an unknown sender or the companies which are offering their products to you, your personal data are most probably misused.
This is only one of examples in the area which is regulated by the Law on Protection of Personal Data. Personal data is all information on the basis of which someone can be indentified. This means that the personal data is the shoe size, what newspapers you read and other. All those who are processing the personal data are called controllers, but those are not only the public authorities, but banks, libraries, video shops, private companies and other – explains Petar Kovačević, director of the Agency for Protection of Personal Data, which started its work in June.
Penalty up to 100.00 KM
For violating the Law on Protection of Personal Data, the violation penalties are being forced. The most rigorous penalties, even up to 100.00 KM, are being imposed for processing the special category of data as are the racial, national, ethnic background, citizenship, political and religious beliefs and other, and transfer of personal data abroad – says Kovačević.
This data, it is very important, controllers can collect and use only with the written approval of citizens or on some juristic basis. Citizens have the right to be informed on the reason of collecting the data, who is processing it, to whom it will be available, and in the case of improprieties they can discontinue their processing.
For example, because of the contracting relations with their clients, banks can ask for their data, but they are obliged to protect it and not use it in some other purposes. By now, the banks have expressed the most interest for protection of personal data, probably because of the strong competition, they want to ensure that right to their clients – says Kovačević.
Reading the grades
Kovačević says that they must make changes in all fields, for example in education, because the grade reading at the joint parent meeting is one of the ways of violating the privacy.
He adds that in the Agency currently they cannot control if the personal data is and in what measure is protected, because they plan to form a sector for inspectional supervision and negotiations. They plan to implement controls, and they will start from the authorities of public administration.