The State Election Commission (SEC) has violated the regulations on personal data protection by releasing the electoral roll and the voters' information on its website, Telegraf.mk reads.
The breach was concluded by the Directorate for Personal Data Protection, whose teams have carried out an exceptional inspection at the SEC on Thursday. Officials with the authority have passed two decisions, under which the SEC is banned from providing electronic access to the citizens' personal data.
"The State Election Commission has been obliged to take measures in terms of browsing through the electoral roll published on its website through a certain municipality not to show the personal data of all the voters in that municipality; not to show the personal data of all the voters registered at a certain address when using a certain address to browse through the electoral roll; not to show the personal data of all the persons who have a certain name and surname when using the same name and surname to browse through the electoral roll," the Personal Data Protection Directorate said.
The directorate's decision also entails the notion that the publishing and the electronic approach to the personal data in the voters registry through the State Election Commission internet page is not just and is not in accordance with the law. Furthermore, it was carried out in a manner that is not in line with the concrete and clearly determined legal objective.
"Article 55, paragraph 1 of the Electoral Code stipulates that personal data contained in the electoral roll are protected in line with the law and cannot be used for any other purpose except in the realization of the citizens' right to vote. But with enabling the electronic access to the name, surname, and the address of all the voters via the internet for an undetermined period of time, there is a risk the personal data would be used for other purposes," officials with the directorate explained.
The second decision forbids the SEC to publish personal data of physical persons on its website (name, surname, gender, address, residence and municipality, date of birth, information of people who have moved out of the country and the number of the polling station) contained in the list of the so-called dubious voters who are subjected to field inquiries.