Personal data protection in force
In May 2021, the law On Personal Data Protection was adopted. It aims to ensure and protect citizens’ rights when processing their personal data. On November 15th, the law came into force and, simultaneously, the National Personal Data Protection Centre was established to ensure implementation of this law. Experts have gathered to explain the provisions of the law and comment on the National Centre’s activity.
Andrei Gayev, the Director of the National Personal Data Protection Centre, focused on the main tasks and provisions of this new authorised body, “The Centre received its legal status only a week ago but it is now ready to solve problems. The key of them include organisation of personal data protection in Belarus and organisation of the educational process. As for the former, this does not mean that all information resources – databases, data banks – will be concentrated in the Centre. They will still be kept by owners of these systems. However, the Centre will influence such processes through the issues related to methodological support, control, and also through investigation of possible complaints from citizens and personal data subjects.”
As regards organisation of the educational process, the Centre will provide advanced training in personal data protection. In addition, it will oversee qualification improvement in issues of technical and cryptographic protection of information which are being transferred from the National Traffic Exchange Centre. Decisions have already been made on who and when should undergo such training.
According to Mr. Gayev, the Centre is to initially concentrate on outlining the measures necessary to implement the legislative act. He considers some aspects need time, so the Centre will smoothly deal with the processes that should be completed. If an incident occurs, the Centre will respond to it properly – if it has competencies to deal with the problem. However, the new body will not replace the work of legal and other services. It will not also solve the tasks that must be overseen by specific agencies.
“Each of us should understand how and what for our data is used and to what extent it is collected. Moreover, thanks to the new law, we can influence this process. It’s also possible to request the exclusion of personal data processing if a person believes that this is not necessary. These issues are regulated by law,” Mr. Gayev added.
In turn, Nikolai Savanovich, the Head of the Constitutional Law Department at the National Centre of Legislation and Legal Research, noted that, previously, the law On Information, Informatisation and Information Protection had some shortcomings. The new regulation has consolidated the previously disparate norms that existed in certain legal acts related to personal data. In particular, the former law did not regulate the issues related to information about e-mail addresses and phone numbers – but this is not observed now.
