Willem Debeuckelaere visited the Security Services Archive
Prague, 28 April 2010 - The Chairman of the Belgian Privacy Commission Mr Willem Debeuckelaere visited the Security Services Archive on Wednesday 28 April. With the Security Services Archive Director Ladislav Bukovszký he discussed the rules of access to documents for researchers and the protection of personal data. The Security Forces Archive has been selected as one of two European archives to present their methods at an international conference in Brussels within the Belgian EU-Presidency this autumn. The other archive in question is the German BStU, the oldest of its kind in the former “Eastern bloc”.
“I am very surprised about how liberal your law is here and about the freedom provided to researchers in accessing information originating from the communist security forces,” said Director Debeuckelaere after his visit. “It is a great honour for us to have been chosen as a case study, especially in comparison to the German BStU. It is according to this archive that we have tried to construct our Institution. The conference participants will have the possibility to compare the youngest and oldest security services archive in Europe. Since the German archive was created almost twenty years ago, the difference between the perception of archival records in the 1990s and today will be apparent at the conference. Whilst in the 1990s, the requirements were mostly based on restitution claims and connected information, nowadays the general trend toward the right to know the past is becoming eminent,” Director Ladislav Bukovsky commented on Mr Debeuckelaere's visit.
