VIII International Conference on Personal Data Protection

Valery Narezhniy, PhD, Counsel, Sergey Medvedev, PhD, LLM, Senior Lawyer and Ilya Goryachev, Senior Lawyer (all of Gorodissky & Partners, Moscow), attended the 8th International Conference “Personal Data Protection” held by Radiochastotny Spectr company (RSpectr) supported by the Russian IT Regulator (Roscomnadzor) at the premises of International Media Agency “Russia Today”. The latest global trends in the field of information technologies (IT) and personal data (PD) protection were discussed at the Conference; also the attendees shared their experience in the segment of protection of PD, elaborated various confidentiality protection measures for the purposes of improvement of manners of interaction of the respective state bodies with data subjects and the business (data controllers and processors).

Specifically, the following issues have been discussed at the Conference: regulatory aspects of the European legislation reform in the PD protection area, as well as the recently adopted General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the issues of collection, storage and use of big data, the problems associated with the use of cryptographic solutions for data protection and biometric identification of citizens (data subjects), the experience of application of the new version of Article 13.11 of the Russian Code on Administrative Offenses (RCAO) in the context of existence of administrative liability for non-compliance with the requirements set forth by the data protection laws, as well as other aspects.

The opening speech was made by Alexander Zharov, Head of Roskomnadzor, who outlined the main features of protection of PD in the digital economy and the development of IT related to data processing. Also, a special Roundtable was organized during the Conference that provided for a “free mike” with the representatives of local Regulators, namely: the Ministry of Telecommunications, Roskomnadzor, Federal Security Service (FSS) and Federal Service for Technical and Export Control (FSTEC).

The Conference brought together more than 200 people, including the representatives of the Russian state bodies and foreign authorized agencies that are in charge of protection and enforcement of the rights of data subjects, different Russian and international business entities, such as data controllers and processors, and lawyers dealing with IT-industry and data protection in Russia and abroad.