The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection addresses a large number of citizens and journalists who asked if the video taping of vehicles by JP PUTEVI SRBIJE (the Public Enterprise ROADS OF SERBIA) and the forwarding of the footage to the Ministry of Interior, is a violation of the right to protection of personal data?
In order to eliminate any possible dilemmas, the Commissioner reminds that having passed the Law on Road Traffic Safety, the Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, among other things, authorized the bodies in charge of traffic and police affairs to record traffic for the purpose of documenting traffic offenses (Art. 286, item1), allowing an option to such bodies to authorize for that purpose a road operator, a public enterprise or a traffic recording institution (Art. 286, item 2).
The Commissioner cannot analyze the purposefulness and justification of the solution from the Law on Traffic Safety on Roads that do not fall within his competence. Regarding the vehicle data (recording of the shapes and license plates), they are not, in principle, personal data, because they only apply to vehicles, i.e. the things, not personalities. These data can become personal information only when it is possible to connect them with the owner, or when, based on them, it is possible to identify the owner of the vehicle. Such a possibility is related to the insight into the traffic permits which contain, in addition to the vehicle data, the data on the owner, i.e. the data processed by the appropriate Ministry of Interior’s database.
The very vehicle videotaping by a public company, whereby misdemeanors are recorded, and such information delivered to the police, in this sense, does not represent the processing of personal data. The public company records that a vehicle with a specific registration plate number exceeded the allowed, mean (average), speed on the highway, which resulted in a misdemeanor, but without knowing who the owner of the vehicle, or the driver is. A vehicle can be driven by an owner, a family member, a friend, or even a person who steals vehicles. Public company does not know that, and has no authority to determine that.
When it receives information that a certain vehicle has exceeded the allowed speed, the police are legally authorized to start processing personal data in order to determine the offender, i.e. the misdemeanor punishment.