In the coming days, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine plans to submit for the first reading Draft Law No. 8153 dated 22.10.2022 “On Personal Data Protection”, which provides for the implementation of the GDPR. The document has caused serious concern among representatives of the public sector, business and media due to a number of risks associated with its provisions.
This was reported on the YouControl Facebook page.
The main risks of the draft law:
- Extremely high fines. For individuals – up to UAH 20 million, for legal entities – up to UAH 150 million or up to 8% of the total annual turnover. For comparison, the maximum fine today is UAH 34 thousand. UAH.
- “The right to be forgotten”. The draft law allows for the destruction of data even with socially significant content. For example, people with criminal records can demand that information about their crimes be deleted. This can lead to restrictions on access to important public information.
- Risk of arbitrary interpretation. The abstract definition of “personal data” allows controlling authorities to interpret this concept at their own discretion, which creates risks of corruption abuse.
- The threat to open data. The provisions of the draft law may limit the transparency of the state, government accountability and the fight against corruption, which is of particular concern to investigative journalists and banks.
- New regulator. The draft law provides for the creation of a supervisory body, which could cost the country UAH 2 billion to maintain. According to experts, this body will inspect every company, and there will be no transition period for adaptation to the new rules.
A call for revision
Experts and business representatives call on the Verkhovna Rada to thoroughly analyse and revise Draft Law No. 8153. It is noted that the previous draft law No. 5628, on the basis of which the new document was developed, has already failed the vote due to inconsistency with the Constitution, significant costs and corruption factors.
What’s next?
The public and business insist on amending the draft law before it is adopted, to avoid negative consequences for the economy and society.
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