In Kakhovka, journalists asked to leave city council executive committee meeting "to protect personal data"

In Kakhovka (Khersonska oblast) on September 12, mass media representatives  were asked to leave the session of the executive committee of Kakhovka city council. This was reported by Kherson journalist Oleh Baturin in his Facebook entry, and confirmed this to the IMI representative in Khersonska oblast. This was requested by the city mayor, Andriy Diachenko, before the consideration of issues of the department for children, related to appointment of guardians for orphans, their property, adoption, and other similar issues. The mayor explained that the reason is that the personal data of children is confidential information. Yet the journalist pointed out that anyone could read the names of the children in question in the agenda of the session that was on display outside. The journalist also added that this attitude in unique to Kakhovka city. In Nova Kakhovka, the speakers simply do not announce the names and other personal data of the children while  discussing the issues. Official web-sites of governmental agencies, as a rule, do not publish this data, too. The specialist for HR and administration of the city council of Kakhovka Hanna Sadova commented on the situation for the local IMI representative. She said that the journalists were asked to leave to protect children's personal data, and the publication of the names in the agenda was a mistake of administrators. IMI media lawyer Maksym Ratushnyi points out that the public access to a session can be limited when the issue in question is restricted information. At the same time, he points out that the demand to leave the session when the information that was supposed to be protected was posted on public display, seems quite strange, undermining the validity of the official reason provided.