Entity for transparency has access to private data, but only oversees audiences

You can ask for access to data like the tax authorities – but it doesn’t ask them. After all, not “not inspector” entity? Expert warns that “overseeing is not checking”.

The entity for transparency (EPT) has as its role “analysis and supervision of the single statement”. However, according to the newspaper, EPT does not use closed data, such as the tax authorities, to do this inspection, using only data that can be accessed by any citizen.

According to the entity itself, the law and its statute do not allow it “the possibility of accessing other databases of public entities ”. It is therefore therefore, it claims that “it requests clarification from the holders and consults the elements that other public entities make available in open access, without the need for the application or payment of fees”.

But according to the self -statute, EPT “You can request, founded, to any public or private entities, the information and collaboration relevant to the performance of their functions ”.

Nuno Cunha Rolo, a member of the community of anti -corruption experts, says the entity makes a “minimalist interpretation” and too “formalistic” of the law, which makes it a “non -supervisory entity; It is a merely instructive body of the unique statements, which invites the holders to fill the statement if they leave blank spaces and, if they are missing, sends them to the prosecutor, ”he says.

“Overseeing it is not just to check If it is delivered, ”he adds,“ it is necessary to confirm that the information is correct, complete and true ”.

This week, the PSD proposed that politicians will have access to, and have to authorize (or disallow) the transparency entity to verify the databases, for example, the Tax and Customs Authority, Banco de Portugal or Social Security.

But the entity says that it cannot, in any way, have access to the data, which allow, for example, to verify the declared properties and income of politicians – It claims to have to respect a “duty of confidentiality assured by fiscal secrecy.”

But the duty of confidentiality does not apply in the case of the “legal cooperation of the tax administration with other public entities, to the extent of its powers”.

Margarida Mano, president of International Transparency Portugal (TIP), considers that it is “fundamental” that this situation changes. AND necessary “Data cross which, not being public, are fundamental for EPT to scrutinize the information that is transmitted to it. ”