The right of citizens to privacy in the Republic of Kosovo is guaranteed under the Law on Personal Data Protection. Moreover, this right is guaranteed by the Constitution (Official Gazette, 2008), which is the highest legal act.The purpose of this academic paper goes beyond a superficial assessment of the level of implementation of this fundamental right of the citizen. The core of this paper focuses on highlighting the existing challenges and those that may persist in guaranteeing the privacy of each (...) of us under the reign of the 'Covid 19' Virus in the geographical and psychological space of all citizens of Kosovo.Despite the existence of an independent authority, mandated to oversee the implementation of this right in the public and private sector, its implementation is a permanent mission of this authority, which in our country is the Information and Privacy Agency, but also is subject to challenges, which are not always generated by human negligence.To give the deserved physiognomy to this article, official accessible sources of the sole authority that oversees the implementation of this right in our country have been used. Statistical data presented within the trunk of the paper reinforce the thesis introduced in the introduction of the article, which is confirmed during its full elaboration, reinforcing the view that part of the main challenges for Information and Privacy Agency persists being the limited number of human professional resources, as a guarantee for establishing an unwavering trust among the citizens that their privacy is guaranteed. (shrink)

The beginnings of the practical implementation of the right on access to public documents, also known as the freedom of information in Kosova date fifteen years back from now, when the first law on access to public documents was adopted. The freedom of information was attained with difficulties by journalists in relation with public institutions until two years ago. This was because of the oversight body of this law’s implementation was a coordinating office within Prime Minister’s Office, without a specific (...) binding mechanism to public institutions, whilst the Ombudsperson served as a second instance, also without an executive mandate to empower achievement of this right. The content of this paper’s body entails, among others, aims to highlight the degree of difficulty journalists faced to provide information in the absence of an appellant authority in the country during a ten years’ period, which is the subject matter of this writing. Notwithstanding difficulties to freely access public documents, provided by law to be open for the public, as well as the people’s lost trust for public institutions in this regard, since 2019 when the oversight mission of the Law on Access to Public Documents was entrusted to the Information and Privacy Agency, the general perception began to change positively. The current situation in terms of the respect for the freedom of information may be considered to be relatively satisfactory, because public institutions are made aware of the existence of the oversight authority, which acts as an appellate authority for citizens. (shrink)