At the 5th session of the Croatian Parliament, the Digital Services Act and the Data Governance Act were debated
Minister of Justice, Public Administration and Digital Transformation Damir Habijan presented to the Croatian Parliament the Final Proposal of the Act on the Implementation of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on a single market for digital services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (Digital Services Act) and the Proposal of the Act on the Implementation of Regulation (EU) 2022/868 on European data governance and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 (Data Governance Act).
More protection for users of digital services
At the beginning of his presentation, Minister Habijan reminded that the Digital Services Act had its first reading back in September 2024 and thanked the Director General for the Development of National Information Infrastructure and Electronic Services, the Head of Sector and all expert services that worked on the transposition of the two regulations in question.
‘Given the subject matter and complexity of the entire legislation related to these two areas, it was quite challenging, because we all know that regulations, unlike directives, are acts that are binding in their entirety for all members of the European Union, including Croatia’, said Minister Habijan.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) has been in place since February 2024, prescribing the responsibility of digital service providers to act as intermediaries between consumers and what they buy on online platforms - goods, services and content.
‘The aim is to better protect users of all digital services and their fundamental rights online, to establish a strong legal framework for the transparency and accountability of online platforms and to ensure a coherent, uniform, harmonised legal framework throughout the European Union’, said Minister Habijan, adding that digital services in general, and online platforms in particular, play an increasingly important role in the economy, enabling entrepreneurs to reach users throughout the European Union, thus opening up entirely new business opportunities for a large number of companies in the European Union, for the benefit of all consumers.
In particular, the Digital Services Act introduces a number of new obligations on disinformation, illegal goods and illegal content, cyber violence, deceptive patterns and targeted advertising, all to the benefit of citizens and consumers.
In this context, Minister Habijan warned that digital transformation and the increasing use of online services carry new risks and challenges for individual recipients of a particular service, for all companies and for society as a whole.
‘In view of this, an agreement has been reached at the level of the European Union and a targeted set of uniform, effective and proportionately binding rules has been established, in order to protect and improve the functioning of the internal market’, said Minister Habijan, stressing that the Regulation adopts a whole set of new rules and introduces a wide range of obligations for digital service providers and new rights for their users such as: updates to the intermediary liability regime for third-party content, rules for tracking sellers on websites, measures to tackle illegal content online, increased transparency requirements for online platforms, obligations to protect minors, new restrictions on targeted advertising, and strengthening of the rights of users.
This Act creates the preconditions for the full application of the said Regulation, as it designates the national authorities that will be competent for the implementation of the provisions of the Regulation, and also prescribes the powers of the said competent authorities, appeal/review procedure and misdemeanour provisions.
Thus, HAKOM, the Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Industries, is designated by this Act as the Digital Services Coordinator in Croatia.
The Digital Services Coordinator plays a key role in ensuring the effectiveness of the rights and obligations laid down in this Regulation and will coordinate the work of all other authorities involved in the enforcement of the Regulation.
‘When it comes to other authorities competent to issue orders to act against illegal content and orders to provide information, this Act designates, first of all, the State Attorney's Office and the Ministry of the Interior for illegal content that constitutes a criminal offence or misdemeanour, and the Personal Data Protection Agency, which will be authorised for illegal content that constitutes a violation of the regulations governing personal data protection’, said Minister Habijan.
Furthermore, the Customs Administration within the Ministry of Finance will be competent for illegal content that constitutes an infringement of intellectual property rights.
The State Inspectorate will be competent for illegal content that constitutes an infringement of the regulations within the scope of inspections of the State Inspectorate, the Ministry of Health for illegal content that constitutes an infringement in the field of health, medicines and medical devices and biomedicine, and the
Agency for Electronic Media for illegal content that constitutes an infringement in the field of electronic media.
‘It is also stipulated that there may be other competent bodies in accordance with the powers set out in specific laws governing their scope’, added Minister Habijan.
This Act also provides for the possibilities of appeal against orders issued by competent authorities to act against illegal content and orders to provide information, as well as for misdemeanour sanctions and fines ranging from 6,630 to 66,360 euros or up to 6% of the annual worldwide turnover of the provider of intermediary services concerned in the preceding financial year, whichever is higher.
‘With regard to the differences between the Digital Services Act at first reading and the Final Proposal of the Act, the Agency for Electronic Media has been designated, with the consent of HAKOM, the Agency itself and the Government of the Republic of Croatia, as the competent authority for issuing orders to act against illegal content and orders to provide information’, explained Minister Habijan.
Secure and transparent management of data held by public administration bodies
‘As regards the Data Governance Act, this is a Regulation which, as a uniform act, regulates the matter of data management held by public administration bodies in a new way’, Minister Habijan stressed, further explaining that this refers to non-personal, anonymised, protected statistical data allowed by the public sector for use, which may be of interest to third parties for various surveys.
The Regulation itself provides a framework for the secure and transparent management of such data within the European Union, with the aim of enabling greater re-use of such public sector data, fostering data altruism and providing data intermediation services.
By transposing this Regulation, i.e. the Data Governance Act, Croatia is strengthening its digital system and contributing to the wider objective of the European Union, which is to create a strong, secure and transparent European data space.
The Act also regulates issues that are not regulated by the Regulation, which primarily concern the competence of bodies obliged to implement the Regulation itself.
‘The Act also stipulates that the existing Open Data Portal, managed by the Ministry of Justice, Public Administration and Digital Transformation, is a single information point for protected data and contains a metadata catalogue as a list of available datasets’, the Minister said. ‘Thus, the interested persons will submit a request to use the data listed in the catalogue via the single information point, and the state administration bodies will decide on each individual request’, he added.
State administration bodies may refuse a request for the re-use of protected data, subject to certain conditions also laid down in this Proposal.
First, if the request form is not filled in accordance with the provisions of the Act in question, if it is assessed that the requested information is not suitable for conducting the research specified in the request, if it is assessed that the purpose or objectives of the research do not justify an interference with the rights of the data subject, and if it is classified information.
This Act designates the Ministry of Justice, Public Administration and Digital Transformation as the body responsible for data intermediation services, to which sole proprietors and legal persons intending to provide data intermediation services will submit a notification in accordance with the provisions of the Regulation, and the Ministry will notify the European Commission thereof, as it maintains the Register of Data Intermediation Service Providers.
‘The Ministry will also be responsible for registering data altruism organisations. Therefore, a sole proprietor or a legal person wishing to register the activity of data altruism will submit to the Ministry an application for entry in the Register of Recognised Data Altruism Organisations’, said Minister Habijan, stating that the Ministry would also be in charge of controling the application of the Act itself.
The adoption of both these laws will allow for more control online, citizens will be better informed about why certain content is recommended to them and will be able to choose an option that does not involve profiling, and the new rules will help protect users from illegal content because the removal of illegal content has been significantly improved.
The adoption of the Act on the Implementation of the Data Governance Act will strengthen the economic sector of the Republic of Croatia and the safety of users of these services.
‘It also allows for the harvesting of the potential of already existing data as well as new products and services based on new technologies that will contribute to the quality of life of citizens’, Minister Habijan concluded.
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