SARAJEVO, January 28 (FENA) – Citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina have a lower level of legal protection of personal data in relation, not only to the European Union, but also to our neighbors, said Director of the Personal Data Protection Agency in BiH Dragoljub Reljić.
He said at the press conference on the occasion of January 28, the International Data Protection Day, that the surrounding countries have already passed new laws on personal data protection, and there have even been changes.
„We have not yet adopted, and it is already six years since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was adopted. It was supposed to take two years to adjust to that,” said Reljić and added that it has not been done so far, and that he hoped that in 2021 the laws would be passed.
He reminded that the Agency was established in 2008 and that with the entry into force of the Stabilization and Association Agreement, BiH was obliged to harmonize its legal acts related to personal data protection with European Union law and all relevant international conventions.
He pointed out that since 2016, when the EU adopted new regulations, primarily the General Data Protection Regulation and the so-called Police Directive, i.e. a directive prescribing how members of the police, prosecutors and institutions for the execution of criminal sanctions will behave when processing data and the Protocol 108 plus, adopted by the Council of Europe, “we have not implemented any of these activities in our legal system, although we are obliged to do so.”
Reljić said that the Agency, like other institutions in BiH, went through a covid period, and that there were difficult moments last year, but they did not interrupt their work, and they had more cases compared to the previous period.
Assistant Director in the Sector for Inspection Supervision, Complaints and Main Registry Samira Čampara presented the most important activities that the Agency had in the past year, saying that they received 184 complaints from personal data holders. She mentioned that the number is slightly higher than in previous years.
They initiated 84 ex officio proceedings and performed 79 inspections.
For the thirteenth year in a row, the Personal Data Protection Agency in BiH is marking January 28, the International Data Protection Day, in order to promote privacy and raise awareness of best practices at European and international level when it comes to data protection.
