14 years of activity of the National Centre for Personal Data Protection

On 10 July, the National Centre for Personal Data Protection (NCPDP) celebrates 14 years of activity.

Throughout this period, the field of data protection has registered a considerable evolution in ensuring the security of personal data and respect for the right to privacy.

As an autonomous public authority, independent and impartial from other public authorities, natural persons and legal entities, the NCPDP aims to protect the fundamental freedoms and rights of natural persons, especially the right for private life regarding the processing and transborder transfer of personal data.

In order to achieve the basic objective, the NCPDP ensures the organization of training courses in the field of personal data protection, ensures the control and supervision activity, issues decisions, instructions and recommendations, concludes minutes on contravention, as well as finds violations of legal provisions in the field of personal data protection.

It also organises actions to prevent breaches of the legislation in this field, including by guiding data controllers in the context of the correct application of the legislation and by informing, raising awareness and educating society on the importance of personal data protection.

At the same time, more and more petitions from personal data subjects are adressed to the NCPDP and the dynamics of the last few years demonstrate this fact. The most frequent topics reflected in the complaints are:

– Realisation of personal data subjects’ rights (access, information, intervention, opposition);

– Processing of personal data through video/audio surveillance systems;

– Processing of personal data in the absence of consent of the personal data subject and in the absence of any other legal basis.

In this regard, the NCPDP will continue to provide support to both data subjects and controllers in order to comply with the regulatory framework in the field and will make every effort to achieve further progress in strengthening the field of personal data protection.