Civil society organizations and a number of media outlets issued a statement whereby they express their concern about the abusive interpretation of the law on personal data protection and transmit a series of demands to the authorities, IPN reports.

The signatories of the statement say a number of public authorities tend to abusively interpret the given law by unjustifiably refusing to provide information of public interest to the applicants. The most frequent complaints about the access to information refer to courts of law, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the National Integrity Authority, the Ministry of the Interior, the presidential administration and numerous state-owned companies (Moldtelecom, Metalferos, Registru, Moldova’s Post Office, Moldovagaz etc).

The public authorities are asked to implement the law on personal data protection in the spirit of the European standards and to hamper the abusive interpretation of the law. The National Center for Personal Data Protection is requested to inform the public institutions about the provisions of Article 10 of the law and to explain the accountability of the institutions that violate this article.

Moldova’s Parliament is asked to identify legislative and normative solutions to the problems signaled by journalists and NGOs in the public debate “Personal data between protection of government officials and limitation of access to information”.

At the end of the statement, the signatories call upon the development partners to become involved in a dialogue so as to inform the Moldovan institutions about the importance of the access to information for a state that is an associate of the EU.

Among the signatories of the statement ar the Journalistic Investigations Center of Moldova, Transparency International Moldova, Association of Independent Press, Amnesty International Moldova, Center for the Analysis and Prevention of Corruption and others.