National Center for Personal Data Protection – 16 years of activity!

On July 10, the National Center for Personal Data Protection (NCPDP) celebrates 16 years of activity. During these 16 years, the institution has made considerable progress, contributing to the protection of citizens’ privacy and ensuring compliance with the legislation on the protection of personal data. 

The NCPDP, as an autonomous public authority, independent and impartial in relation to other public authorities, natural and legal persons, informs that its objective remains the same – the protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals, in particular the right to privacy in relation to the processing and transborder transmission of personal data.

In order to achieve the basic objective, the NCPDP continues and amplifies the actions to sensitize the society on the importance of personal data protection, both from the perspective of respect/knowledge of the data subjects’ rights and ensuring the exercise of the obligations of personal data controllers; contributes to raising the level of correct interpretation and consistent application of the legal provisions in the field of personal data protection by the actors involved in the processing of personal data, including by ensuring the balance between the legal provisions related to the rights of access to information, freedom of expression and personal data protection and sensitizes development partners in the realization of joint projects, in order to ensure the adequate level of personal data protection in the Republic of Moldova.

Therefore, during its 16 years of activity, the NCPDP has continued to monitor and verify the compliance of the processing of personal data by public and private sector operators by carrying out checks on the basis of complaints from personal data subjects and self-reports to the authority, following complaints received for examination, including from public authorities/institutions.

At the same time, more and more petitions from personal data subjects are coming to the NCPDP, and developments in recent years demonstrate this. The most frequent themes reflected in the complaints are:

• Processing personal data without the data subject’s consent and/or legal basis;

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

• Processing personal data by disclosure on social media; 

• Realizing the rights of personal data subjects (access, information, intervention, objection), etc.

At the same time, the field of personal data protection continues to be promoted by strengthening international collaboration – a strategic aspect, being materialized through the active participation of representatives of the NCPDP at the plenary meetings of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the Council of Europe. It is worth mentioning that the Republic of Moldova has been an observer member of the EDPB since 2017, and the acceptance of the Republic of Moldova as a member with observer status is a premiere and a major achievement in the Eastern space, being an important step towards the recognition of the Republic of Moldova as a third state ensuring an equivalent level of personal data protection to that of the EU.

In the same way, during the 16 years of our activity, 19 cooperation agreements were concluded at national level (National Social Insurance House, General Inspectorate of Border Police, General Inspectorate of Police, National Institute of Justice, Union of Lawyers of the Republic of Moldova, ULIM, Department of Penitentiary Institutions, Academy of Public Administration, National Association of Information Technology and Communications Companies, etc. ) and 10 at international level (bilateral Cooperation Agreements with the Data Protection Authorities of Romania, Ukraine, Italy, Hungary, Georgia, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Italy, Latvia, Malta and Romania), which allows us to have a faster and more efficient collaboration with our partners.

The NCPDP, as a personal data protection authority, will continue its mission to ensure a fair balance between the right to protection of personal data and the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, and will strive to achieve further progress in promoting and strengthening the field of personal data protection.