Big Brother is watching Poles?

“The amount of citizens’ data which public authorities reach for puts [Poland] first on the list throughout Europe,” barrister Mikolaj Pietrzak, head of the Human Rights Committee at the Polish Bar Council told Polish Radio.

The Polish Bar Council’s report comes after European Commission figures which state that in 2010, police and special services in Poland looked into itemised telephone bills 1.3 million times without any checks from the courts or prosecution, and without citizens’ knowledge.

According to Mikolaj Pietrzak, there is no reason for police to reach for such information if citizens have not committed a crime, and that searching for such documents breaks the citizens’ constitutional right to privacy.

Polish policing authorities have the freedom to check whom citizens are calling, where they are during any calls made and how long the conversation lasted. “This information is often more important than the conversation itself,” Pietrzak adds.

The Polish Bar Council is not the first institution to criticise the data-protection laws in the country. The General Inspector for Personal Data Protection and the Citizens’ Ombudsman, Irena Lipowicz, have also slammed the law in this respect.

Meanwhile, the Polish Bar Council has opined that Poland’s presidency of the EU Council will offer a chance to modify the European Commission directive on collecting and retaining information on citizens. (jb)

Source: IAR/PAP/Newsweek Polska