Romanian Social Democrat Leader Urges For Public Debate On Personal Data Storage

“We must strengthen the state’s role in preventing terrorism or activities that might lead to the destabilization of the state. This is only fair and it occurs throughout the entire civilized world. At the same time, however, we need to be aware that in Romania there are still fears or suspicions about the fact that such instruments (used for storing telephony, SMS, internet data – e.n.) might be utilized to consolidate certain authoritarian trends in the country,” Geoana said during the inauguration ceremony of the new Interior Minister, Liviu Dragnea.

 

Geoana said it is time for a public debate in Romania on this sensitive matter, as the “democratic ferment” would bring a fair balance regarding protection against unjustified invasion of privacy.

 

 “We still keep in the back of our minds the memory of a state that reprimanded citizens and deprived them of their fundamental rights. We didn’t have a Revolution and spent 20 years of democracy to shift the balance to the other direction now,” Geoana said.

 

Romania’s prosecutor general Laura Codruta Kövesi criticized the provisions of the law recording data generated or processed by communication suppliers, arguing this law could seriously affect criminal probes.

 

Kövesi said Tuesday she would propose the Justice Ministry to initiate a series of amendments to Law no. 298/2008, which compels telecom companies to store for six months certain data on calls, short messages and emails, information that can be accessed by the Ministry of Interior, prosecutors, Romanian Intelligence Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service, on request.