Russia amends rules for processing public data

01/03/2021

On 1 March 2021, Federal Law No. 519-FZ dated 30 December 2020 comes into force to amend the Federal Law “On Personal Data”. The amendments remove from the law the concept of “personal data made publicly available by the personal data subject” and remove an article that previously allowed anyone to process such data without the consent of the data subject. At the same time, a new Article 10.1 and the notion of “personal data in respect of which the data subject authorised dissemination” have been introduced. This new concept includes data for which an individual gives access to an unlimited number of persons via consent and authorises its dissemination. Under the new requirements, operators must obtain the consent of personal data subjects before the dissemination of their personal data. It is expected that the changes will affect primarily the owners of websites on which personal data is published (e.g. social networks, ad sites) and employers who publish information about employees on their websites.