The upper house of the Russian parliament has approved the law “On personal data” that will regulate the gathering and use of the population’s private details. According to experts at InfoWatch, despite the fact that the new law promises to create some extra expenses for business, its adoption is undoubtedly a big step towards protecting people’s personal information.
Last Friday the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, approved the draft law “On personal data”. The senators noted that the law is an integral part of Russia’s ratification of the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data.
The new law guarantees the inviolability of the right to a private life and bans the use or circulation of specific categories of data such as racial origin or nationality, political or religious beliefs, an individual’s state of health or sexual orientation. At the same time, the law requires those operating private databases to provide effective safeguards to protect the personal details of the population.
However, a clause on the creation of a state population register was recently dropped from the law. 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.
“Russia really needs a law on personal data, and the fact that the law is virtually in place is particularly good news. Of course, putting it into effect is going to require some extra investments from businesses – permission will be needed from individuals before their private details can be stored, as well as effective measures for protecting the databases. Those expenses are unavoidable, however. The data anarchy that is prevalent today needs to be ended,” says Denis Zenkin, marketing director at InfoWatch.
Source: CitCity
