State Election Commission (SEC) on Thursday in a public session decided to act upon the request of the Directorate for Personal Data Protection to withdraw from public inspection on the Internet the Electoral roll with the total number of voters and the roll of inconsistent records – which is a subject to field checks covering 89,000 doubtful voters.
Regarding the first solution (for the Electoral roll, in which checking was available by name, address and place of voting), a decision was made to file a lawsuit before the Administrative Court on the grounds that the withdrawal of the Electoral roll is in violation of the Electoral Code .
Directorate for Personal Data Protection has adopted two decisions after ex officio, performed an extraordinary inspection in the SEC in relation to the publication of personal data from the Electoral roll on their website. According to the Directorate, the Electoral Code in Article 55 paragraph 1 provides that personal data contained in the Electoral roll shall be protected in accordance with the law and must not be used for any purpose other than the exercise of the voter’s right of the citizens. However, by providing electronic access to the name and address of all voters via the Internet for an indefinite period, there is a risk the personal data to be used for other purposes.