09. 08. 2008

RATEL ANNOUNCED WITHDRAWAL OF THE INTERNET RULEBOOK

Belgrade, August 9th, 2008 (Blic Daily) - Feeling pressure from the general public, in their next meeting of Agency’s Management Board, Republic Agency for Telecommunications will withdraw their Rulebook that ordered Internet service providers to enable and facilitate unconstitutional secret control of electronic mail messages of virtually all Serbian citizens by the relevant state institutions.

At a round table meeting organized by the Serbian Economic Chamber, the withdrawal of the controversial Rulebook was announced by Grozdan Petrović, a member of RATEL’s Management Board. According to Petrovic, the Rulebook would be withdrawn in the next meeting of their Management Board, after which a public discussion on all the controversial issues would be initiated. This document was heavily criticized in the round table meeting, not only because it contains provisions contrary to the Serbian Constitution provisions, but also as a legally immoral document that enables and permits interception of people’s electronic mail messages, changes in their content and sending of such changed messages to people who should originally received them.

Rodoljub Šabić, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, assessed  that citizens’ privacy will not be guaranteed even after the adoption of the Personal Data Protection Act, and that mechanisms that exclude secret monitoring without a court order must be strengthened.

Slobodan Marković from the Centre for Internet Development  points out to the fact that RATEL’s Rulebook contains legal obligations for Internet service providers to buy very expensive equipment for electronic monitoring of Internet communication, an activity that is to be performed by the state. He also noted that in both the cases, the expenses will be paid by the citizens, either from taxes, or through the increased prices of various Internet services.

In case that such a Rulebook is adopted and enforced, the Internet service providers would have to earmark 100,000 to one million Euros for such equipment, according to Aleksandar Mutabdžić from “Informatika“ company.

Related News:

* ANEM to Condemn RATEL's Technical Conditions Document and Way of Its Adoption (ANEM Statement, July 29th, 2008)