According to international standards, every child’s right to privacy should be protected at all stages of judicial proceedings.
Data disclosure of children being held in penal system may lead to their social stigmatization, prevent their integration into society, hinder their access to education and employement. Moreover, after leaving the system, they may continue adhering to the identity they had chosen before being detained.
“Once a child enters prison, everybody knows everything about him or her. Survival of a child is possible through protecting the personal data” – Maia GedevaniShvili, the Head of the Centre of Child’s Rights of Public Defender of Georgia says.
Research, recently conducted by non-governmental organization – Rehabilitation Initiative for Vulnerable Groups, revealed that there are lots of shortcomings in the penitentiary and probation system of Georgia. Presentation of the research results was held on February 18.
Out of currently existing juvenile correctional institutions, Avchala Juvenile Special Facility №11 is the only institution where only juveniles are held. In other institutions, juveniles are placed together with adults in separate departments. In other institutions, except №11, structural units, functional rights and duties and the general proceedings are conducted in a uniform manner, where the peculiarities of working with juveniles are not distinguished.
Anton (Tato) Kelbakiani, the head of non-governmental organization – Rehabilitation Initiative for Vulnerable Groups, said that “currently, personal data of childen is accassable to individuals and bodies with no appropriate qualifications and competence. Inccorectly used personal data poses a lot of problems and risks to children. In addition to stigmatization, unjustified disclosure of personal data may have a negative impact on children’ psyche, change their attitude towards the law enforcement agencies and moreover, towards the state. In addition, personal data can be used to harass, pressure, threat and blackmail a victim. Unfortunately, we have seen such cases in the past.”
In addition to the identified shortcomings, the report offers some recommendations as well.
Personnel qualification and training system are one of the weaknesses of penitentiary and probation systems. According to the recommendations provided by the research group, training on the protection of personal data should be mandatory not only for middle and low level employees, but for top-level management as well. Employees should have special skills. As Tato Kelbakiani said, ‘penitentiary system is an “institutional culture”, which is quite powerful and an inappropriately qualified person will not be able to overcome it/to deal with it’.
Another important shortcoming is the confusion of rights and obligations of structural units, as well as unlimited circle of people authorized to have access to personal data and rules and procedures of data disclosure. Consequently, the recommendation is to determine who may access the personal data of a child, in what circumstances and how they should be registered/recorded.
One of the most important gaps is the rule of personal data storage and destruction. “There are no regulations and terms for personal data storage and destruction… If 14 years old child is detained in penitentiary facility for at least 2 hours, his/her data is stored in the system indefinitely. There should be different standards for all cases – rules of storage and destruction, terms, etc. This applies both to penitentiary, as well as to the probation system.” – said Kelbakiani.
Research group launched advocating for changes, which have resulted in
- Amendment has been made to a new legislative package on “Special Correctional Service” concerning the mandatory training of personnel working with juveniles;
- Project on the draft normative act regarding the regulation of audio-video control system in prison system has been developed;
- Amendment has been made to the strategy for prevention of juvenile crime, concerning a child’s right to privacy / protection of personal data;
- National Probation Agency has developed a draft order, which defines the general regulations with regard to the registration and protection of personal data within the system.
Rehabilitation Initiative for Vulnerable Groups will keep up intense advocacy for overcoming shortcomings that have been revealed through the analysis of legislative framework and will introduce relevant recommendations and specific legislative initiatives.
Research was conducted with the support of the Open Society Georgia Foundation.