Personal data protection, area of interest for lawyers

The National Center for Personal Data Protection (NCPDP) provided, on March 11, a training course for 50 lawyers from the Republic of Moldova, in the field of personal data protection. The training course was performed within the Council of Europe’s HELP online meeting.

The topics addressed during the event were: personal data protection and the rights of data subjects in the European Union, but also the legislation of the Republic of Moldova on personal data protection.

Denis Coțofan, Interim Deputy Head of Legal Department of NCPDP referred, during the event, to the general principles of the national legislation on personal data protection. “If personal data are collected directly from the data subject and at the latest at the time of first disclosure, he must be provided with the following information: the identity of the controller / processor, the purpose of processing for which the data are collected, the recipients of personal data, the existence of the rights of access to data, the right of intervention upon data and the right to object, as well as conditions under which such rights may  be exercised and whether the answers to the questions intended to collect data are mandatory or voluntary, as well as the possible consequences of denial to respond ”, mentioned Denis Coțofan.

During the event there was also discussed the fact that any processing of personal data can take place only for well-defined, explicit and legitimate purposes; adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purposes for which they are collected and/or further processed. The information collected is intended for use by a lawyer for professional purposes and may be communicated, depending on the nature of the legal assistance, to the following recipients: contracting parties, public notaries, courts and co-participants in legal proceedings, public institutions, banking institutions, registries as well as other types of persons and institutions directly concerned, who pursue the established legitimate interest.

We mention that NCPDP has previously addressed practical aspects aimed at the protection of personal data by lawyers, including the publishing on the website www.datepersonale.md: “Aspects regarding the practice of submitting to the materials of the files examined by the courts, the documents with personal data of natural persons, which are not covered in the examined case ”. These recommendations aim to ensure the application by lawyers of adequacy principle which consists in limiting the volume of personal data relevant to the cases examined, with depersonalization of data that are excessively irrelevant to the case, according to art. 31 of Law no. 133/2011 on personal data protection.