One of the downsides of running your own company is that you have to get familiar with things you could never care for and amazingly often make sense only to really twisted bureaucratic minds.

In Slovenia, if you collect personal information of any kind, you have to register such database 15 days before its first use with Inspectorate for Personal Data Protection . I’m all in favor of laws protecting personal information and in general I think Slovenian laws are not too bad in that regard. But if inspectorate by their own words rarely inspects cases that weren’t reported to them and all such inspections seem to be limited to state institutions, what good is such register than anyway? How does it protect anyone?

You can read online a list of companies that registered their databases together with a short summary of what kind of data they collect and what for. I’ve checked a company where I administered such database for two and a half years (never experienced an inspection of any kind) and it’s quite clear that no one actually checks if provided information is true or complete.

What you’re left with is another meaningless obligation you have to fulfill. Preferably by sending them email with data AND a printed form (email only is not allowed). Nice. You can do more work so they don’t have to.

E-government Slovenian style.