The draft bill “On personal data” has been passed by the Russian parliament, the State Duma, at its second reading. A clause relating to the creation of a national register was excluded, though legislators left the way open for a special law on a national register. Experts at InfoWatch described the bill is an effective step towards a civilized form of privacy for Russian society.
Russia’s State Duma has approved the draft law “On personal data” at the bill’s second reading. The parliamentarians dropped two of the provisions that caused controversy at the first reading – the assigning of a personal identifier to all Russians and the creation of a nationwide electronic register. The lawmakers have tried to ease fears that the state intends to gather digital dossiers on its citizens. Now, if the government or parliament want to create a state register, they will have to adopt a separate law.
In the words of the politicians, the main aim of the law “On personal data” is to safeguard those databases that contain the private details of the population. Following the penultimate reading the concepts used in the bill have taken on a more precise legal nature and the introduction of additional measures are intended to protect the rights and interests of individuals. The widely criticized term “identifier” was also removed from the draft law.
The original version of the law would have seen federal and regional authorities assigning personal data identifiers to Russian citizens which were to be accompanied by a State Population Register. The register was supposed to comprise a minimum amount of information on every citizen (name, sex, date and place of birth), but it was also to become the basis for the amalgamation of the numerous state databases. This was the main reason the proposal met stiff resistance from civil rights activists and religious figures. Even President Vladimir Putin voiced his concern about the idea.
The concerns about the use of a state register for illegal ends appear to have been justified. As one parliamentarian pointed out, the State Population Register could have become a useful tool for organizations selling human organs or for settling scores with opponents by obtaining information about them.
However, a separate law to create a similar register is still a reality. First of all, the draft law “On personal data” passed at the second reading leaves a loophole for just such a law. Secondly, the Ministry for Communications and Information Technology believes that the creation of a national register under a separate law would be more appropriate because the law “On personal data” had a number of ambiguities regarding the register. For instance, the first draft made no mention of who would have been responsible for the register.
“The creation of a new database or the consolidation of the numerous state databases currently in existence is an objective and natural process. It is unavoidable. But something completely different concerns us: What level of confidentiality will be given to the personal details on those databases? Until there is a clear and precise answer to that question, the creation or consolidation of databases containing information on the whole Russian population is not only meaningless but dangerous,” warns Denis Zenkin, marketing director at InfoWatch.
Source: CNews