The Council of Europe Experts Object to Proposals to Amend Legislation on Personal Data

Council of Europe experts presented in Chisinau, on November 8, their opinions and recommendations on the amendments to the legislation on personal data protection, formulated in a new draft law proposed by the National Center for Personal Data Protection (NCPDP).

In the experts’ opinion, the authority’s proposals on the justification of data requests, which will be required under Article 9, on the processing of personal data and the freedom of expression, may create problems in the work of journalists. NCPDP representatives argue, in their turn, that those provisions would offer greater clarity to information providers about the right to provide information.

According to the NCPDP’s draft law, persons intending to obtain official information containing personal data for journalistic, scientific or artistic purposes must justify the need to obtain them.

Experts believe that exceptions for the purpose of freedom of expression and right of access to information create uncertainties, and they added that they see no sense in them.

Sergiu Bozianu, deputy head of a NCPDP’s department, said that this provision was proposed so that the information provider that is asked for a large amount of information containing personal data can only provide the information in question when the journalist proves there is public interest in such cases.

“We, through this particular amendment, wanted to cover cases where there is no justification for the increased public interest in obtaining information, when the journalist’s request contains no justification, but targets a large amount of personal data.”

From the Center’s point of view, a solution in such cases would be for the operator holding personal data to ask the journalist to motivate the request for such amounts of information and whether this information is of increased public interest before it is provided.

Nevena Ružić, the Council of Europe expert on personal data protection, argues that in such cases public interest should be justified not by the journalist, but by the authority concerned, which should explain and motivate why the information requested by the journalist in certain cases cannot be provided or is not of public interest, if applicable. The expert added that this provision could lead to more limitations of the rights of journalists in the process of obtaining information.

The public discussion on the draft law was organized by the National Center for Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Moldova (NCPDP) in partnership with the Council of Europe.