Digitization and personal data protection

The Bucharest Government has approved the citizens' personal data management system that will be stored in the future government data centers. Security policies have been implemented, so that no unauthorized person will have access to the Romanians' personal data. The Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization, Sebastian Burduja, has explained that citizens will be informed when authorities need their data. The data will be stored in a government cloud to integrate at least 30 institutions until 2026, the minister said. The project has a total budget of over 561 million euros. The minister explained that the citizens' data will be stored in a secure and protected place and that they will be notified any time an institution accesses their data.

Sebastian Burduja: “We respect the personal data sovereignty criteria and all data centers of the government cloud are and will continue to be on Romania's territory. Also, we discuss, for the first time, about regulating and archiving the access to data so that data access history cannot be erased. That means any accessing of the data will be archived and audited and the Romanian citizens will be notified about the Romanian state's access to their data."

The Romanian Intelligence Service SRI will ensure cyber security while the Special Telecommunications Service STS will ensure the implementation,  technical and operational administration, cyber security, maintenance and the development of the basic infrastructure of the government cloud. A necessary instrument for the online accessing of various services is the new identity card which, by the end of the year, will be issued at national level.

The cost of the first 5 million ID cards will be covered from funds obtained under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, police chief Catalin Giulescu has explained: “Both the electronic ID card and the simple ID card will be issued in a certain format, which is similar tot that of the driving license or bank card, so a smaler format. The security elements included in these two documents are in line with the technological criteria of the present time, so that security risks posed by the ID cards in circulation at present are removed. The ID cards we have at present have been issued starting 1997.

Parents can also request the issuing of ID cards for minors. Moreover, citizens can further opt for an electronic ID card or for a simple one, without electronic storage support, depending on their preferences. (EE)