Human rights experts in Romania issued harsh criticism at the government resolution adopted last week to set up an Integrated Information System (SII), as they consider it as extremely dense, imprecise and giving room to arbitrary interpretation. The SII is a database that will centralise the information held by all public institutions regarding natural and legal persons, that may likely become the electronic arm of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI).

Manuela Stefanescu, representative of the Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania - the Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH), said the government resolution referred to a decision of the Supreme Defence Council (CSAT), which could not be a substitute for the parliament. "Furthermore, this is not a public resolution, because if you take a look on the CSAT's web site, you will see that the latest resolutions of the council are from 2001", said Stefanescu. Consequently, the government resolution on the setting up of the SII refers to a CSAT decision which has not been published and therefore it does not exist and is also unconstitutional, said the APADOR-CH official.

She said her organisation agreed to the article published in "Evenimentul Zilei" daily which said the people who would control the SII would actually control everything. "We do not know to whom this integrated information system is subordinated, we do not know to whom it is of use, and it is extremely dangerous to create a superpower, especially without the slightest guarantee that the personal data will be protected (...) Furthermore, natural and legal persons lack any means of controlling the way in which the data centralised in this mammoth system is used (...)", said Manuela Stefanescu.

Evenimnetul Zilei (in English, 29.10.2003)
http://www.evz.ro/english/?news_id=132980

(Contribution by Bogdan Manolea, legal coordinator RITI - Romanian Information Technology Initiative)