Based on the child's written application, the Personal Data Protection Service of Georgia examined the lawfulness of informing the child by the guardianship and custodianship authority.

Since the application submitted by the child to the Service was written in Braille and later - transcribed and signed by a third person (the minor's teacher), in order to effectively respond to the appeal of the child and investigate their will, the Service personally interviewed the minor in their living environment, confirmed their will, found out that in the current situation, the child was in state care, and only afterwards started the examination. As a result of studying the application and communicating with the child, it was established that the child requested in writing from the guardianship and custodianship authority the documents containing their personal data, which were not delivered at the time of the application.

As part of the inspection, it was determined that the minor was a disabled person (blind), a restraining order was issued against their parent, and the child was in state care. It is essential that, at the same time as the restraining order was issued, a criminal case was initiated on the fact of violence against the minor, within the framework of which, based on the request of the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia, the documents containing the personal data of the minor kept in the guardianship and custodianship authority were transferred to the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia in a short period of time, while the request of the minor was similar (containing their personal data kept in the guardianship and custodianship authority) was satisfied only 50 days after the submission of the written request. It is noteworthy that in the scope of the criminal case, the child's rights were protected on the basis of a warrant by one of the non-governmental organizations, whose address was indicated by the minor in the application sent to the guardianship and custodianship authority, and finally, it was to this organization that the child's documents were handed over, after signing the relevant power of attorney.

In accordance with the Law of Georgia "On Personal Data Protection", any person has the right to get acquainted with their personal data stored in a public institution and to receive copies. With the decision made on the case, the Service evaluated the circumstances of the case taking into account the best interests of the child, and considered that the effective realization of the above-mentioned right by a person acquires special significance when the issue concerns the provision of the legitimate interests of a child with disabilities and the qualified involvement of them and/or persons chosen by them in various legal proceedings. In this case, the guardianship and custodianship authority delayed the transfer of the documents requested by the child for almost two months and therefore limited the realization of their right, citing insufficient human resources as the reason for this, which meant the impossibility of preparing the documentation in a comprehensible form (in Braille) for the blind child in a short period of time, and the difficulty arising from the point of view of determining the person authorized to receive the documentation, which was due to the change of the social worker assigned to the child.

According to the decision of the Service, the insufficient resources at the disposal of the guardianship and custodianship authority, or the absence of such resources, were not shared as a justifying circumstance for restricting the rights of the disabled child, since there was a real and immediate interest of the child to be informed about the documents processed by the guardianship and custodianship authority about them in various legal proceedings and based on them to protect child’s own interests, even during ongoing criminal and/or civil proceedings. Accordingly, the fact that the provision of information to the blind child was quite delayed in time the Service has uniquely assessed it as a restriction of the child's rights.

The Service clarified that the guardianship and custodianship authority, as an institution responsible for a minor in state care, should pay due attention to the legitimate interests of the child and look for several ways to solve the problem, for instance, through active communication by a social worker with the child, determine the will of the minor and clarify whether the child really wanted to send the materials to the address of the non-governmental organization indicated in the application, and/or familiarize the child with the documents and their content (by reading) personally with the involvement of a social worker and in this way to inform the child, especially in the conditions when the delay in providing the documentation to the minor was caused by the above-mentioned unjustified reasons. Taking into account all the above, by the decision of the Service, the guardianship and custodianship authority was considered as an offender and thus, was imposed a sanction.

The Service underlines that based on the various cases discussed with the participation of minors, in relation to children's personal data, it is especially vital for public and private institutions to show a level of responsibility, in case of possibility (taking into account age and other circumstances), to ensure their involvement and to inform on current processes, to take into consideration each circumstance related to the child and apply all necessary measures so that data processing, decisions made and/or the time limits and scope of exercising their rights are based on the best interests of the child.