Albania Govt Accused of Misusing People's Data

Albania's opposition centre-right Democratic Party has referred the Ministry of Education and the Prime Minister to prosecutors for what it calls a brazen attempt to use schools to collect voter information for election-related purposes.

Albana Vokshi, an MP, claimed on Wednesday that teachers had been instructed to tell pupils to bring the ID numbers of their parents to school, and that the Ministry of Health is scrutinizing people's health files for the same reason. The government denies the allegations.

"We have referred Prime Minister Edi Rama, Education Minister Lindita Nikolla and Health Minister Ogerta Manastirliu to prosecutors for receiving and elaborating the personal data of parents of pupils in schools, and for scrutinizing the healthcare files of patients ... in health centres," Vokshi said.

The Ministry of Education said its data-collecting project aimed to create a communication platform between parents and teachers and denied that data were being collected for political purposes.

"The ministry is creating a network for real-time communication with parents and teachers," it said. "To make this process safe and effective, specialists deemed the [collection of] Personal Identification Numbers necessary, as a security element," the press release added.

"The ministry guarantees that these data will not be used for another purpose, as is being interpreted by certain political subjects," it continued.

Following the opposition allegations, however, Minister Nikolla had ordered the removal of this request, it explained.

The Ministry of Health claimed that it was building a healthcare database, and that the data it collected would be used only for healthcare services and not for political purposes.

Albania's...