Ograničavanje privatnosti u uvjetima pandemije u Republici Hrvatskoj
Limitation of privacy during pandemic in the Republic of Croatia

Summary/Abstract: The effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic requires the increased interference of authorities in the privacy of individuals. The Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union proclaim that the right to privacy is not absolute and set the conditions for limitations of this right – the limitations must be based on law and proportionate to the legitimate aim of protection of public health. Croatia has undertaken several measures that limit the privacy during pandemic. The first set of measures is related to health data and its increased processing for the purposes of treatment of disease and the prevention of its spreading. The measures are based on the Law on protection of citizens against contagious diseases which provides procedures and rules for processing of personal health data during an epidemic and they appear to be proportionate to the aim they want to achieve. The analysis of GDPR in respect of health data demonstrates that this document takes into account emergency situations such as the pandemic at hand, and that its rules and principles of processing of personal dana remain applicable. Second set of measures relates to the tracking of location data of mobile devices and causes more concern from the point of view of the necessity in democratic society. The legislative changes proposed by the Croatian Government in respect of exceptional processing of location data in an emergency seem to lack some important safeguards, that were explicitly invoked recently by relevant institutions and bodies of the European Union and Council of Europe.

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