privacy Archives

Montenegro Police Violated Front MP’s Privacy, Ombudsman Rules

Posted on September 25, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Montenegro’s Deputy Ombudsperson, Nerma Dobradzic, on Friday said police had violated the privacy rights of Democratic Front MP Nebojsa Medojevic and his wife Marina when they posted a video on Twitter of them being moved to quarantine.

The police directorate posted the video on March 17, which was then aired on the country’s public broadcaster, RTCG.

Deputy Ombudsperson Dobradzic said the police had failed to provide any objective reason that justified publication of the video. “Publishing a video or delivering it to the media without consent is an interference with the right to respect of a private life,” Dobradzic said.

Police defended their action, saying the event was filmed in a public space and that the faces in the video were kept blurred in order to protect the privacy of Medojevic and his wife.

But the Deputy Ombudsperson noted that the Police Directorate published Medojevic’s and his wife’s names in full in a press release, which they did not do when Navy chief Vesko Tomanovic, the mayor the resort of Tivat, Sinisa Kusovac, and an athlete, Srdjan Mrvaljevic, violated their self-isolation health measures.

The Ombudsman’s office has intervened before on complaints related to the pandemic. On April 1, Ombudsperson Sinisa Bjekovic noted that various citizens were complaining about the constitutionality and legality of the government implemented health measures.

On July 23, the Constitutional Court annulled a government decision to publish the names of citizens ordered to self-isolate during the coronavirus, though it did not rule that the government violated the human rights of citizens in doing so.

The government published the names on March 21 despite warnings from opposition parties and civic society organisations that it risked violating constitutionally guaranteed human rights.

The government said it had a right to publish the names because some citizens were not respecting self-isolation obligations. It also said it had approval for its actions from the Agency for Personal Data Protection.

It stressed that the security forces could not control every citizen who should be in self-isolation, adding that anyone who failed to self-isolate posed a threat to the entire community.

The Democratic Front is a constituent part of the For the Future of Montenegro coalition which, alongside two other coalitions, Peace is Our Nation and Black on White, narrowly won parliamentary elections held on August 30, ending the decades-long rule of the Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS.

Montenegro Court to Examine Publication of Self-Isolating Citizens’ Names

Posted on May 29, 2020January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Montenegro’s Constitutional court had agreed to examine whether the government violated the human rights of citizens ordered to self-isolate during the coronavirus by publishing their names.

On Friday it said it would consider the appeal brought by the local NGO Civil Alliance against the decision to publish the names of people undergoing self-isolation, which the alliance said violated their constitutional right to privacy.

“The court will examine whether the decisions of National Coordination Body for Infectious Diseases violated constitutional rights,” the court said.

The government published the names on March 21, despite warnings from opposition parties and civic society organizations that it risked violating constitutionally guaranteed human rights.

The government said it had to publish the list because some citizen were not respecting self-isolation obligations. It also claimed it had the approval of the Agency for Personal Data Protection. It stressed that security forces could not control every citizen who should be in self-isolation, and anyone who failed to self-isolate posed a threat to the entire community.

Prime Minister Dusko Markovic said no compromises would be made with those who violated preventative measures amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. He also warned that the government would continue to publish the names of citizens who had been ordered to self-isolate.

“The lives of our citizens are the priority. We have estimated that the right to health and life is above the right to unconditional protection of personal data,” Markovic said.

Opposition parties and the civil society sector urged the government not to publish the lists, insisting it would violate the constitutional right to privacy. They also warned that citizens whose names were published might sue the state before the court.

The Head of the EU Delegation to Montenegro, Aivo Orav, called on the authorities to find the right balance between protecting the health and respecting the confidentiality of health information and the right to privacy of citizens.

On April 8, the Prosecutor’s Office filed criminal charges against a medical staffer in the Health Centre in the capital, Podgorica, after he published the list of names of infected people and their ID numbers on social networks.

It said that the man, known only by the initials M.R., was not unauthorized to collect and use personal information on COVID-19 patients through the IDO system and forward them via Viber to other persons.

Hiljade.kamera.rs: Community Strikes Back Against Mass Surveillance

Posted on May 18, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Serbian citizens have launched the website hiljade.kamera.rs as a response to the deployment of state-of-the-art facial recognition surveillance technology in the streets of Belgrade. Information regarding these new cameras has been shrouded in secrecy, as the public was kept in the dark on all the most important aspects of this state-lead project.

War, especially in the past hundred years, has propelled the development of exceptional technology. After the Great War came the radio, decades after the Second World War brought us McLuhan’s “global village” and Moore’s law on historic trends. Warfare itself has changed too – from muddy trenches and mustard gas to drone strikes and malware. Some countries, more than others, have frequently been used as testing grounds for different kinds of battle.

Well into the 21st century, Serbia still does not have a strong privacy culture, which has been left in the shadows of past regimes and widespread surveillance. Even today, direct police and security agencies’ access to communications metadata stored by mobile and internet operators makes mass surveillance possible.

As appearances matter most, control over the flow of information is a key component of power in the age of populism. We have recently seen various developments in this context – Twitter shutting down around 8,500 troll accounts pumping out support for the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and its leader and the country’s President Aleksandar Vucic. These trolls are also frequently used to attack political opponents and journalists, exposing the shady dealings of high ranking public officials. Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House have noted a deterioration in press freedom and democracy in the Balkan country.

However, a new threat to human rights and freedoms in Serbia has emerged. In early 2019, the Minister of Interior and the Police Director announced that Belgrade will receive “a thousand” smart surveillance cameras with face and license plate recognition capabilities, supplied by the Chinese tech giant – Huawei. Both the government in Serbia and China have been working on “technical and economic cooperation” since 2009, when they signed their first bilateral agreement. Several years later, a strategic partnership forged between Serbia’s Ministry of Interior and Huawei, paving the way to the implementation of the project “Safe Society in Serbia”. Over the past several months, new cameras have been widely installed throughout Belgrade.

This highly intrusive system has raised questions among citizens and human rights organisations, who have pointed to Serbia’s interesting history with surveillance cameras. Sometimes these devices have conveniently worked and their footage is somehow leaked to the public, and in some cases, they have not worked or recordings of key situations have gone missing, just as conveniently. Even though the Ministry was obliged by law to conduct a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) of the new smart surveillance system, it failed to fulfil the legal requirements, as warned by civil society organisations and the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection.

The use of such technology to constantly surveil the movements of all citizens, who are now at risk of suddenly becoming potential criminals, has run counter to the fundamental principles of necessity and proportionality, as required by domestic and international data protection standards. In such circumstances, when there was no public debate whatsoever nor transparency, the only remaining option is a social response, as reflected in the newly launched website.

“Hiljade kamera” (“Thousands of Cameras”) is a platform started by a community of individuals and organisations who advocate for the responsible use of surveillance technology. Their goals are citizen-led transparency and to hold officials accountable for their actions, by mapping cameras and speaking out about this topic to the public. The community has recently started tweeting out photos of cameras in Belgrade alongside the hashtag #hiljadekamera and encouraged others to do so as well.

The Interior Ministry has yet to publish a reworked and compliant Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) but the installation of cameras continues under sketchy legal circumstances.

Bojan Perkov is a researcher at SHARE Foundation.

Tech Giants Urged to Preserve Blocked Content About Virus

Posted on April 22, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

A total of 75 signatories, including Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, have signed a letter asking social media and content-sharing platforms to preserve all data they’ve blocked or removed during the coronavirus pandemic and make it public for researchers and journalists in the future.

“We understand that many platforms have increased their reliance on automated content moderation during the pandemic, while simultaneously removing misinformation and apparently inaccurate information about COVID-19 at an unprecedented rate,” the letter, published on Wednesday, says.

However, the signatories argue that this data will be of great importance to researchers, journalists as well as people working in public health.

“This is also an unprecedented opportunity to study how online information flows ultimately affect health outcomes, and to evaluate the macro- and micro-level consequences of relying on automation to moderate content in a complex and evolving information environment,” the letter reads.

The signatories ask companies to preserve all data on content removal including but not limited to information about which takedowns did not receive human reviews, whether users tried to appeal takedowns as well as reports that were not acted upon.

They also ask companies to produce transparency reports with information about content blocking and removal related to the novel coronavirus as well as to allow researchers and journalists to access this data, recognizing that privacy will need to be ensured.

“It will be crucial to develop safeguards to address the privacy issues raised by new or longer data retention and by the sharing of information with third parties, but the need for immediate preservation is urgent,” the letter further reads.

The letter will be sent to social media giants and companies including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Pinterest, Wikimedia, Reddit, Vimeo, Verizon Media and Microsoft.

Apart from BIRN, other organisations that signed the letter included the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, Syrian Archive, PEN America and others.

Ever since the COVID-19 outbreak started, a lot of information about the virus has spread online, including potential disinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories.

In a bid to curb this disinformation, many social media outlets have started deleting such content. At the end of March, for example, Facebook deleted a video from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in which he claimed that hydroxychloroquine was effective in treating the COVID-19.

Twitter also deleted a tweet about a homemade treatment by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, while YouTube banned conspiracy theory videos linking COVID-19 symptoms to 5G networks.

Concern for Rights in Montenegro amid COVID-19 Fight

Posted on March 26, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Rights groups in Montenegro are warning of a threat to data privacy rights, free speech and media freedoms in the former Yugoslav republic under cover of the government’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Montenegro, a country of some 630,000 people, has at least 29 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and one death. Since the outbreak, police have stepped up action against those accused of spreading false information and, ignoring the protests of opposition and rights organisations, published the names of people required to self-isolate due to the virus.

The country, which has been run by the same party for the past three decades, has a long record of restricting human rights and violating data privacy rights.

Activists fear the government will exploit the COVID-19 pandemic to clamp down further. The government says its overriding priority is to protect the lives and health of Montenegrin citizens.

“I am afraid that an attempt to deal with one danger could create another danger,” said Daliborka Uljarevic, executive director of the Podgorica-based Centre for Civic Education.ducation.

Dozens arrested

On March 13, a court imposed 30 days custody for a Montenegrin man who wrote on Facebook that state officials were concealing the true extent of the pandemic.

On March 22, another man was arrested on suspicion of falsely claiming that he had been infected.

The next day, police announced that 60 people had been charged with violating the restrictions imposed by the government to combat the spread of COVID-19, including those accused of spreading ‘fake news’ and others who opened restaurants after the government ordered them closed.

The same day, in the coastal town of Kotor, a Russian citizen was arrested after she wrote on Instagram that around 1,000 people had been infected by the virus in Montenegro and that six people had died of complications.

Authorities have used such tactics before, arresting two NGO activists in January over their Facebook posts during protests organised by the Serbian Orthodox Church against a controversial freedom of religion law. Three journalists were also detained on suspicion of causing panic and public disorder in their writing.

Concern over government respect for law

Uljarevic said the government had performed well so far in combating the virus, but that it should work more closely with all social and political actors.

“As a society we are facing a big problem and it requires the institutional mobilisation of a wider range of socio-political actors, especially when it comes to some moves that have an effect on different structures and can lead to the vulnerability of parts of society,” Uljarevic told BIRN.

Opposition Social Democratic Party, SDP, MP Rasko Konjevic said the government should make it stays within the law in dealing with the pandemic.

“This situation is extremely serious and it is important for the state to show its organisation and strength but not to forget the Constitution and laws,” he said. “It’s important that we are all equal before the law.”

Concern rose on March 22 when the government published the names of those people ordered to self-isolate, arguing that some had chosen not to respect the order.

The government said it had received the consent of the Agency for Personal Data Protection, and the the lives and health of Montenegrin citizens came first.

Opposition parties and civil society groups were outraged.

Further concerns have been raised over a number of economic decisions issued by the government without consulting parliament, despite provisions in the constitution that specify such decisions can only be taken by the government under a state of emergency. Montenegro has not declared a state of emergency.

Konjevic said the government should consult more widely. “They could share responsibility with others,” he said.

Russian Court Rules Facial Recognition Doesn’t Violate Privacy

Posted on March 4, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court ruled on Tuesday that the facial recognition system launched on January 1 does not violate the privacy of citizens, paving the way for a 105,000-strong camera network to stay.

The decision was a blow to activists and opposition politicians who argued that the surveillance operation was illegal, Reuters reports.

The case against Moscow’s Department of Technology, DIT, was filed by lawyer and activist Alena Popova and opposition politician Vladimir Milov of the Solidarnost party in January.

They sought to ban use of the technology at mass events and protests and to delete all stored personal data previously collected.

“This ruling shows there are no legal defences for facial recognition complaints,” Popova’s lawyer, Kirill Koroteev, told the media.

The DIT is in charge of managing the surveillance network in Moscow. According to reports, it has spent 3.3 billion roubles, about $53.3 million, installing cameras and licensing facial recognition software to bring the network online.

During the court proceedings the system was on, with the Russian authorities using it to ensure that people who were ordered to remain at home or at hotels under the coronavirus quarantine are doing so.

Meanwhile, the DIT website says it uses the video surveillance system in crowded areas to “ensure safety”. It says that video footage is deleted within five days of an incident, unless a request by the public or law enforcement is made.

Following the first court hearing on January 31, rights watchdog Amnesty International said facial recognition systems posed a threat to Russian citizens’ privacy and human rights.

“In the hands of Russia’s already very abusive authorities, and in the total absence of transparency and accountability for such systems, it is a tool which is likely to take reprisals against peaceful protest to an entirely new level.

“It is telling that the Russian government has provided no explanation as to how it will ensure the right to privacy and other human rights, nor has it addressed the need for public oversight of such powerful technologies,” Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty’s Russia Director, said.

This is the second time that Popova has filed a lawsuit against the DIT concerning the video surveillance system.

She was previously fined for participating in a protest in Moscow in 2018, and claims that she was only identified with the use of facial recognition.

Last November, the Savelovsky District Court of Moscow refused to examine her claims that her right to privacy was undermined by the establishment of Moscow’s video surveillance system and the lawsuit was dismissed.

The face recognition system covering the whole Moscow underground transportation network is set to be fully operative by September 1.

Sergiu Bozianu: Moldova Still Doesn’t ‘Get’ Privacy Law

Posted on January 27, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Sergiu Bozianu, president of the Association for the Protection of Privacy in Moldova, told BIRN in an interview that respect for privacy remains a problem in Moldova, especially when it comes to the so-called force institutions.

The lawyer says the authorities should follow the European pattern and create a unique register of all intercepted ways of communication, surveillance or special investigative measures.

“Special investigative measures are of a secretive nature. Nobody must know them, or we won’t catch thieves anymore. But every special investigative measure should be recorded somewhere,” he says.

He also says that, after a time, if the prosecutors do not find anything about the person who was the target of the special measures, that person should be notified about the procedures.

When it comes to the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, Moldova, despite having adopted this European law, has implemented it in an ambiguous way, reflecting the fact that parliamentarians do not seem eager to take a strong stand on the matter.

In June 2019, in the last days of Pavel Filip’s Democratic Party government, an journalistic investigation done by media outlet RISE Moldova revealed that the Interior Minister had authorized special surveillance actions on 52 members of the pro-European opposition, civil society members and journalists.

The 52 were psychically monitored, their phones tapped and cameras and microphones were even installed in their apartments. These major violations of their private lives were justified by alleged suspicions that they were planning a coup.

“From what I know from the media – because there have been no official reactions – some criminal cases have started [on these cases of illegal surveillance],” Bozianu said.

“But given the level of public interest in this activity, the bodies concerned should come up with statements on the subject – to clearly state what was done, and what the results were,” he added.

Bozianu mentioned another big problem in Moldova on privacy, besides the questionable actions of the authorities.

“We are talking here about private security agencies and the detectives who confuse their security activity in the private sector with police interception,” he said.

Bozianu said members of private security agencies often do exactly what the police do, even though they are not allowed to, by law. “Usually, these are former police officers or secret service employees, and they do the same activities in the private sector after they leave the official system,” he explained.

Confusion about what law really says:

Moldova first adopted a law on the protection of personal data in 2007-2008, after it ratified Convention 108 of the Council of Europe’s 1981 treaty for the protection of individuals regarding the automated processing of personal data. This was replaced by the current law, Law 133, for the protection of personal data, that remains in force until now.

The Moldovan lawyer, Sergiu Bozianu, speaking at a conference about the rights to a private life in Chisinau, Moldova, September 18, 2019. Photo: Sergiu Bozianu`s Facebook account

But Bozianu said it was problematic that communication officers of state institutions in Moldova now often refuse to reply to media requests for information by misinterpreting the protection of personal data law.

“Lately, it has become fashionable to invoke the regime of personal data. But this does not mean that [information] should not be published and revealed, if the grounds are that it is of public interest or concerns public money and public offices. It must be published,” he added.

He also criticised the “selective justice” in the past years by which some TV channels seemed to have preferential access to the personal data of important politicians – usually political adversaries of the authorities, like the former jailed prime minister Vlad Filat, the archenemy of the oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc, who still owns the biggest media empire in Moldova.

The lawyer also argues that the present law has flaws, with high corruption trials mostly kept secret. “When it comes to the divorce of two spouses, everything is published, about how they cheated, with whom, if they got hit and so on,” he complained.

“Today, we have a major problem with the publication of court rulings. We publish data when it is not needed – and do not publish data when it is needed. Corruption cases are all anonymised,” he said.

For those who break the privacy law, there are five types of penalty, with a maximum fine of 15,000 lei [750 euros] applicable. Theoretically, prison is also possible, stipulated in Article 177 of the penal code on the inviolability of personal life.

However, while this article is taken from Russian legislation, the law on the protection of personal data was transposed from EU law, namely from Directive 9546.

“We have tried to make a hybrid that does not work,” he suggests. “We have introduced something with national specific [judiciary provisions], and from a predictable European act, have made an unpredictable law that is outdated and inapplicable,” he adds.

Moves to improve law stuck in parliament:

The General Data Protection Regulation came into force in Moldova on May 25, 2018. Bozianu has been fighting for amendments since then, but a bill with these amendments has now been in the parliament since 2018 – although it was won a positive vote at the first reading.

Moldovan deputies taking a vote in the Parliament. Photo: EPA/Doru Dumitru

“This bill is a very important one for us, because it comes with a new regulation in the field of data protection, and from a European perspective,” Bozianu said.

The lawyer said it was imperative for Moldova to better implement all European law requirements, especially from the perspective of trade with EU markets.

“We need to have a law that would give us fair competition in relation to other economic agents,” he says. “If a Moldovan company wants to enter the European market or provide services there, it must comply with European requirements regarding GDPR,” he stresses.

Bozianu says Moldova must comply with European GDPR regarding social media accounts as well. He argues that if Moldovan citizens do certain actions on Facebook, they now risk being sanctioned under European GDPR.

“European GPDR applies in many situations in Moldova … when we store in the cloud on Facebook’s server, we actually store in the EU,” he notes. “All the information about Facebook users is in the EU – and that is where the GDPR applies,” he concludes.

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