Goran Vojković

Using Public Private Partnership models in smart cities - proposal for Croatia

How smart is a “smart city”? According to Asian examples of newly growing smart cities, usage of technology can improve life standard and reduce cost of living, improve operational efficiency, environmental sustainability, eco-friendly infrastructure, smart technology Internet of Things (IoT), smart living and direct citizen participation in decision making process. Learning, adaptation and innovation could be the future for Croatian cities by using all mentioned, which will improve social, regulatory and safety indicators for designing a better living environment for Croatian citizens. While using Public Private Partnership (PPP) models, crowdsourcing and democratic ecologies which provide better and more efficient public services by taking advantage of private sectors “know-how”, cities will create long-term investment opportunities and sustain real time optimization strategies by providing safe and reliable place to invest. The intention of this paper is to show how the (local) governments role in PPP projects is to evaluate and approve detailed execution plans of the concessionaire while the private partners role is to design, build, finance, and operate the facilities. In futuro, digital technologies offer numerous possibilities for citizen participation in decision making at local and regional government level.

Legal framework issues managing confidential business information in the Republic of Croatia

Confidential business information in the Republic of Croatia is regulated in an insufficient mode - the Data Confidentiality Act provisions are still on force for more than 20 years, and entirely inadequate for todays time. Considering that information is now greatly kept in electronic form, it is necessary by the internal documents, and in accordance with the existing outdated legislation, to regulate in detail the issues of confidential business information. In case of exchange of business information which are confidential - it is necessary to sign the appropriate contract between the parties. This paper is about existing of legal shortcomings and how to overcome them in practice.

From safe harbour to European data protection reform

European personal data protection laws have set the electronic communication privacy standards for more than two decades. Among these standards, the Commission Decision 2000/520/EC of 26 July 2000 pursuant to Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament (The Safe Harbour Decision) stood out as a cornerstone of transatlantic data protection regime. The Court of Justice of the EU decision in Maximillian Schrems vs. Data Protection Commissioner in late 2015 has declared the decision invalid. In the light of the long standing legislative reform of the European Data Protection legal framework and the revelations of widely spread unauthorized electronic surveillance, data collection, interception and access by intelligence services and authorities of several countries, there is an urgent need for improved data protection rules, especially regarding collection and export data via cloud services established and hosted outside EU. The purpose of this article is to analyse publicly available reform proposals concerning in the light of the recent ECJ Safe Harbour decision, as well as the developments regarding the future EU-US Privacy Shield proposal.

Public and Private Ports in Croatian Law

Existing classification of the Croatian seaports does not fit the level and meet the needs of the economic development of the Republic of Croatia, particularly after the Republic of Croatia joined the European Union. Equalizing public service offered by a port with the purpose of the port itself (general purpose – port open for public traffic, special purpose – port not open for public traffic) limits the economic development and aggravates the implementation of the basic market policies of the EU. Therefore, modernisation of the basic classification of ports in the Croatian legislation is suggested. Basic categorization of ports should be as follows: public service ports, private service ports and private ports for private needs of an entrepreneur.

Legal regulation of public Information Infrastructure in Republic of Croatia

Draft proposal of the Croatian State Information Infrastructure Act was made public in December 2013. This Act, due to be entered into legislative procedure by summer 2014, aims to regulate rights, obligations and responsibilities of the state regulatory bodies concerning establishment, development and management of the state information infrastructure system. The Act adopts a unified method of establishing and managing public registries and conditions the state information infrastructure has to implement with regard to public registries as well as using common data interchange platform within the system of state information infrastructure. The draft proposal regulates government to citizen (G2C) and government to businesses (G2B) services. The aim of the article is to analyse the current draft proposal, consider its compatibility with the European legal framework as well as with national legislative and, where current provisions fail to meet the legislative standards, to propose modifications de lege ferenda.