Military commissariats and media outlets violate personal data protection law – High Commissioner on Human Rights

When military commissariats and media outlets publish announcements that summon draftees to military commissariats, they violate the law on protection of personal data. The High Commissioner on Human Rights Valeria Lutkovska emphasized this in a legal explanation on her official website.

Lutkovska draws the public’s attention to the fact that recently more and more military commissariats have been using the form of summoning draftees by publishing the lists of local draftees in newspapers, local news websites, or placing these lists in public places. Such announcements usually specify a draftee’ name, surname, patronymic and sometimes even the date of birth and place of residence.

Lutkovska explains that such information are a person’s personal data and has to be collected, processed, or published according to the provisions of the Law of Ukraine «On Protection of Personal Data.»

For the context, recently in Lvivska oblast, local newspapers published the lists of local draftees, whom the employees of Sokal-Chervonohrad rayon military commissariat failed to hand the draft notice. The regional media center of the Ministry of Defense in Lviv reported this practice as a success and qualified it as completely legal and even recommended other military commissariats to adopt it to be able to fulfill the draft objectives. After that, in Ternopilska oblast military commissariats began to publish in local newspapers names of the citizens, whom they failed to reach or who failed to appear before the commissariats.