The parliament adopted a revised Law on Protection of personal information on December 17, 2021, and this law will come into force on May 1, 2022. This law is a revised version of current Law on Individual secrecy, which will be repealed on the date when revised law comes into force.
Current Law on Individual secrecy was adopted in 1995. It has passed over 20 years since then and social relations have changed and evolved a lot. The revised law covers a wider range of personal information than the current law, and regulates protection of personal information rather than “personal secrets”. Law on Protection of personal information covers personal information (such as name, date and place of birth, citizenship, educational background, membership, information on property, etc.) and sensitive information (such as nationality, religion, gender, key to digital signature, criminal and medical records, sexual orientation, correspondence, etc.), which also include genetic and biometric information.
The revised law introduces several novelties. One of them is that any personal and sensitive information must be collected, processed and used with a written consent from owner of the information (either written on paper or electronically), with exception of cases specified in laws. Pursuant to current Law on Individual secrecy only owner of personal information has responsibility to protect his/her own “personal secrets”. When the revised Law on Protection of personal information comes into force the responsibility to protect one’s personal information shall be imposed also on government bodies, individuals, legal entities and organizations without the rights of a legal entity that legally collected, processed and used personal information. Also, lawmakers differentiated criminal liabilities for disclosure of personal information via telecommunications and the Internet, and toughened criminal penalties.
The revised law also regulates matters and restrictions related to installation of cameras, voice recording devices and making of recordings in public places, offices and/or at home, processing and use of such recordings.