Personal data processing and storage procedures in the Internet are changed

Current political situation in the world is dynamically changing with the trend of rising tension. At the same time, the globalization of data exchange influenced, in particular, on the necessity of storage of personal data outside the countries of their location. This fully applies to Russian citizens.

The above, in turn, has led to the weakening of the personal data safety; this is evidenced by numerous scandal cases, connected with unauthorized disclosure of personal data of ordinary citizens as well as high-level officials, including public officials. Besides, the threat of sudden limitation of legal access to personal data, which is stored on foreign resources, has appeared.

All this caused the need to develop the measures for protection of personal data of Russian citizens. As a result, the Federal Law from 21.07.2014 №242-FZ «On amending certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation in relation to the procedure for processing personal data in information and telecommunication networks» came into force on 01.09.2015.

Amendments to the Federal Law from 27.07.2006 №152- FZ «On Personal Data» were made. They change the order of access restriction to the information, which is processed with violations of Russian legislation in the field of personal data, in the Internet. Organizations, which are collecting and processing personal data of Russian citizens, are obliged to record, organize, accumulate, storage, update and modify, extract personal data with the help of databases located only on the territory of Russia.

The exceptions to this rule are the following cases of personal data processing: execution of international contracts; performing of functions, powers and duties assigned to the operator by the legislation of the Russian Federation; mete justice and implementation of enforcement proceedings; performance of powers by Executive authorities of all levels, State budgetary funds and functions of organizations, involved in provision of public and municipal services, including registration of the subject on the Unified portal of public and municipal services; professional journalist activity, legal mass media activity,  scientific, literary and other creative activities under the condition, that the rights and legitimate interests of the personal data subject are not violated.

The operator is obliged to notify the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) of intention to process the personal data and location of such databases before the beginning of processing in the form of paper or electronic document.

Violators of the above rules will be included by Roskomnadzor in the special Registry of violators of the personal data subject rights; the aim is to limit access to the information, which is processed with violations of legislation, in the Internet. 

The basis for inclusion in the Registry can be the judicial act, which is entered into force, or the statement of a person, whose personal data are published with violations. The Registry includes: domain names, indexes of web-pages; IP addresses, which allow to identify the web-sites in the Internet; identification of judicial act, entered into force; information about violation elimination; date, when the operator sent information about the resource to limit access to it.

Roskomnadzor's practice in deleting of personal data from information resources show that in 61% cases such data is deleted by administrators of Russian and foreign web-sites.

Thus, personal data is completely under State protection now and, moreover, any possibility of setting access limits to data by any foreign persons (entities) is eliminated.

Remark:

As a result of measures assumed, more than 260 internet resources of .ru domain extension were blocked by Roskomnadzor due to their illegal activities on personal data processing. The list of Internet resources, registered in .com, .net, .info and .org domain zones, includes more than 100 items (the leaders are: USA, India and Bahamas).