Protection of Personal Data in Digital Environment

In recent years, the application of legislation in the field of personal data has become the focus of attention of legal scholars. With the development of digital technologies, the problem of protection of personal data becomes especially urgent. The importance of personal data is so great that some scholars treat them as intangible goods. In order to protect the interests of citizens, our State takes measures to localize citizens’ personal data by statutory regulation of the Russian segment of the Internet. Such remedies as the right to be forgotten and personal data anonymization are also applied.

However, the practice, including judicial practice, shows that the available means of protection of personal data are insufficient in the context of new technologies. However, the practice of application of laws on personal data reveals a number of problems that need to be addressed. The attribution of specific information about natural persons to personal data leads to a number of questions with regard to the practice of the activities of state bodies. Under currently effective Article 3 of the Federal Law, the term personal data refers to any information relating directly or indirectly to a certain or definable natural person (subject of personal data). At the same time, the law does not specify which data about an individual refers to personal data. Due to this broad understanding of personal data, questions arise concerning the attribution of paticular information about an individual to personal data. In this regard, the definition of criteria for the attribution of specific information about a person to personal data becomes an important theoretical task.

The issues of primary concern include: 1) strengthening of responsibility for violation of personal data legislation; 2) giving priority to the issue of neutrality of the Internet, 3) solving the problem of the balance between direct access to publicly available data and the need to protect personal data. In the author’s opinion, it is necessary to ensure by means of comprehensive measures the priority of protection of personal data of citizens. This problem is of particular importance in connection with the elaboration of new laws on the digital profile of citizens.

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