Officials from the Capital City Podgorica state that due to the report of NGO MANS, they were forced to stop filming public areas and citizens living in them through video surveillance introduced as a part of pilot project at 10 locations, which is why the city’s property, including children’s playgrounds, is being robbed and destroyed.
However, the city administration is knowingly holding back the fact that the video surveillance system was introduced without the consent of the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information (APDPFAI), which means that data were collected and processed contrary to the Law on Personal Data Protection which, among others, protects the right to privacy. Simply put, the administration of the Capital City Podgorica illegally recorded, processed and stored data, not respecting any of the provisions of the law that protects the right to privacy of the inhabitants of this city, which was finally confirmed by the APDP.
MANS submitted an initiative to APDP in July this year, after it was established that in many places video surveillance had been set up without the necessary notice that it was being carried out.
After that, at the end of July this year, APDP ordered the Common Affairs Service of the Capital City Podgorica to delete the recordings collected so far, but also to stop processing personal data until obtaining the legally prescribed consents, and to inform them about that, of which MANS reported.
As the Capital City Podgorica did not even try to comply with the legal procedure and obtain consent for more than two months, except that in the meantime it posted necessary notices, in October 2020, APDP ordered the city officials to remove the cameras and delete the collected material.
From the decision of APDP
At that time, MANS also sent questions to the Common Affairs Service of the Capital City regarding why the legal procedure was not followed in the meantime. In addition, we asked the city administration why it insisted on illegal collection of data on citizens and persistently ignored recommendations of the APDP, but we never received a response.
The need to protect city property from delinquency is absolutely clear to every well-meaning citizen, but it can be done only in accordance with the law, not arbitrarily and in violation of one of the most sensitive rights of citizens, which every responsible city administration should know.
Accusing MANS for destroying of children’s playgrounds and allocating of money for their repairs, while consciously avoiding mentioning that video surveillance was abolished due to violations of the law, is yet another switching of arguments by the current city administration, which is increasingly trying to disguise populist moves that usually have no basis in law with demagogy and shifting the blame to others.
MANS
