On thrusday, January 25, 2007, the President of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications and Information Technology, Dan Georgescu, attended the roundtable held in Sibiu, on the occasion of the European Data Protection Day organised by the National Agency for the Surveillance of Personal Data Processing together with the Prefect’s Office of the Sibiu County.
“Both ANRCTI and ANSPDCP are independent regulatory authorities, an extremely important fact as regards the sectors they regulate. Taking into consideration that, only in the electronic communications domain, ANRCTI manages around 2500 electronic communications providers who, at their turn, operate databases with millions of input data, it is easy understandable why the active involvement of ANRCTI in protecting the users is necessary.
At the present moment, a lot of discussions take place around the European Directive and its transposition in the national legislations, concerning the retaining of the personal data generated or processed by the electronic communications services providers. This Directive triggered serious tensions at an international level, since the authorities have been accused, following the attacks of September 11, 2001, that they grant disproportionate attention to the safety factors as compared to protecting the privacy. In my capacity as a representative of the Romanian authorities, I may assure you that we will look after the adoption of the Directive, under optimum conditions, so that the private life of each citizen is protected and a safe environment for all of us is therefore created”, Dan Georgescu, the President of ANRCTI, declared during this event.
The Directive on the retaining of personal data was adopted during the Justice and Internal Affairs Council (JAI) of March 15, 2006, and is to enter into force as of September 15, 2007.
As regards the data available on the Internet, the Directive provides for the possibility of the Member States to postpone its application until March 15, 2009, provided that the Council and the Commission are notified by means of a dedicated statement (Romania requested a 36 months transition period).
The protection of private rights, and especially the right to privacy, related to the processing of personal data in the fields of electronic communications and postal services, represents one of ANRCTI’s objectives, since, to this extent, the Authority enjoys regulatory powers and establishes the minimum requirements in the field as well as the content of the detailed invoice.
“The regulation of the content of detailed invoice aims at making available to the end-users a minimum set of information and thus allowing them to evaluate the way of setting tariffs for the services they use, as well as to understand and verify the content of the invoices issued by the providers. Moreover, by clearly emphasizing and detailing the way of setting tariffs for the electronic communications services, the end-users may adjust their consumption behaviour to their actual needs, and may act according to their own choice and responsibility”, Dan Georgescu added.
The event was also attended by representatives of the National Agency for the Surveillance of Personal Data Processing, of the local authorities and of the civil society.