From Dr S. Micallef Stafrace
These past few days have seen the celebration of 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is much to be said about the content of these rights, or rather about how much leaders the world over refer to them in the correct manner. Time has not been much of a harbinger of change, but in truth there seems to be a slow and inexorable appreciation of the value of these rights in this day and age.
The rise of the information age has led to new ways in which these rights may be abused. I will dwell on only one and simply refer to Malta.
Article 12 of the declaration states:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
This right can have only one meaning: privacy cannot be interfered with. Secondary to this is the right of everyone to have his or her privacy protected. This right is further manifested locally in the Data Protection Act which, although very often misinterpreted, is intended to be an effective tool for our protection.
This is why the Nationalist Party Secretary-General Paul Borg Olivier was so wrong in his recent actions and declarations. Dr Borg Olivier started the ball rolling with a schoolboy error in sending an email to the wrong person. To be fair, I suppose we have all been culpable of this at some time or other – although there is only one Secretary-General of the PN and his error is thereby compounded. The error was then taken further with the explanation that this was only an attempt at customer relations. When this was not enough, the rabbit out of the hat explanation was that other political parties do the same! Pull the other one, Paul!
On what basis does the PN believe it has the right to expect Government departments to furnish it with details of the day-to-day activities of Maltese citizens and possibly even foreigners? How can it be acceptable to divert complaints directed by the private citizen to governmental or departmental level into the database of the PN?
Has not this right been trampled upon with the email in question? Lest we be misquoted, this email contained the following text (translated from the Maltese):
“Every Customer Care Official [in the ministries and parliamentary secretaries’ offices] is being asked to send all the data on a template which will be provided to you by ..... This data (in excel format) must include (1) personal data on the persons who approach the ministries’ customer care during the last eight months, (2) type of request, (3) action, (4) result (pending).”
And this is what we know about. I wonder what goes on behind our backs!
Dr Simon Micallef Stafrace