Author: Boyana Boyadzhieva
On July 27, 2023, at its regular meeting, the Commission for the Protection of Personal Data adopted the Ordinance of July 27, 2023 on the maintenance of the register of reports under Article 18 of the Protection of Whistleblowers or Public Disclosers of Violations Act (PWPDVA). This Regulation lays down the procedure for the maintenance of the register of whistleblowers under Article 18 of the PWPDVA by the obliged entities referred to in Article 12(1) of the Act, as well as the conditions for forwarding internal reports to the Commission for Personal Data Protection (CPDP). The Regulation has already been promulgated in issue 67 of the Official Gazette and is available here.
At the same time, the CPPD has published the first methodological guidelines for the reception, registration, and handling of reports received by the obliged entities under the PWPDVA on the basis of Article 19(2)(3) of the PWPDVA, the purpose of which is to:
1. support the activities of the obliged entities under the PWPDVA, including the officers/units designated by them responsible for receiving, registering, and handling reports under this Law;
2. establish uniform rules and criteria in the performance of the functions of receiving, registering, and examining reports received through the internal whistleblowing channel of the obliged entity;
3. avoid inconsistent practices and establish predictability in the application of the regulations to protect whistleblowers or public disclosers.
The methodological guidelines are subject to supplementation and updating in order to comply with the legal requirements to conduct an analysis of the practice of implementing the PWPDVA. The methodological guidelines apply from the date of their publication on the website of the CPPD (04.08.2023) and are available here.
The adoption of the Ordinance is an important element of the completion of the transposition process of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law. The adoption of the Ordinance also finalizes the national legal framework on whistleblower protection, which was launched on 4 May with the entry into force of the Act.