Protection of Privacy Related to Criminal Procedure Cover Image

Заштита права на приватност у вези са кривичним поступком
Protection of Privacy Related to Criminal Procedure

Author(s): Milana Pisarić
Subject(s): Criminal Law, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
Published by: Матица српска
Keywords: criminal proceeding; information technology; right to privacy; protection of personal data

Summary/Abstract: Every person has the right to privacy and protection of personal dana and these rights may be restricted only in order to protect the general interest or the preservation of important values in society. If there is a certain degree of suspicion that a person committed a criminal offense, the competent authorities are authorized to limit his/her privacy rights and to collect and process personal data for the purposes of criminal proceedings, by taking certain actions and measures in accordance with the law. On the basis of legal authorization certain subjects may take regular and special evidentiary actions and measures, but possible privacy infringement and data collection should be limited to the extent necessary to suppress a specific criminal offense in accordance with the principle of proportionality. It is necessary and useful to apply the methods and techniques of information technology in order to detect and prove criminal offenses. However, uncritical regulation and voluntary application of advanced methods and techniques of surveillance and monitoring of user’s activities (whose daily activities increasingly rely on information technology) would create a real risk of expanding and deepening the scope of spheres of life to be monitored to a much greater extent than legitimate monitoring within the concept of proactivity and creation of a complete and panoptic surveillance of personal data. This could not be justified by the needs to oppose even the most severe forms of criminal offenses.Thus, actions and measures based on the use of these techniques and methods should be laid down and applied in accordance with the principles of specificity, necessity and proportionality, and with control of the judicial authorities, so the right to privacy would not be jeopardized. It is necessary to find a proper balance between the needs of criminal proceedings and respect for human rights, with regard to regulating powers of investigative bodies in collecting data of individuals. In online environment, the protection of the right to legal personality and the right to free development of personality through the right to privacy as well as the protection of personal data are necessary to be provided by legal regulations containing even stricter and more precise rules (comparing to offline environment) that determine the scope of powers of the authorities to collect evidence for the purposes of criminal proceedings, because certain actions or measures can greatly interfere with the private sphere of individuals in the direction of a complete privacy annulment.

  • Issue Year: 2016
  • Issue No: 154
  • Page Range: 53-65
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Serbian