The current law does not define anonymised data, which greatly hampers introduction of large masses of information into circulation, according to Director for legal research of the HSE, head of the normative regulation working group under ANO Digital Economy, Managing Partner of the IRS Advisory Group Ruslan Ibragimov.

“The national Digital Economy project was adopted in order to launch a digital economy. A digital economy is the economy surrounding data, so the programme’s objective is to launch Big Data into civil circulation and only in this form can they bring value to the economy. That is when the term emerged that data are the “new oil”. Unfortunately, over five or so years, we have not achieved this goal and data have not become the “new oil””, said Ibragimov during Russia’s first Data Forum.

He also noted that, during the working group’s discussions, the digital economy infrastructure was created, in particular maintenance of digital archives and digital DMS. “Without this, the digital economy cannot exist. Yet we have not got as far as introducing Big Data into circulation”, said the expert.

Ibragimov explained the situation from the viewpoint of a lawyer. “We have had many discussions on the topic but they have had no result as they were pointless. It turns out that the law on personal data and other laws lack any definition of anonymised data. We argued that it is not legally defined, with the law defining only the anonymisation process”, he said.

The lawyer also gave the example of a Moscow law passed as an experiment, where, in his opinion, the definition of anonymised data is even worse. “It says that anonymised data are personal data received as a result of anonymisation but that, despite the anonymisation, though they remain personal data. While circulation of personal data, as we know, is restricted by the legislation. This extraordinary legal occurrence has pushed along a wrong route”, the expert noted.

Ibragimov believes that, to make data circulation legal, a definition is needed to start with. “I would prefer to reject the term “anonymised” in favour of the term “anonymous” data and to adopt a number of parallel restrictions. For instance, a ban on deanonymisation for a time, a ban on circulation of these data from other operators. In addition, I would divert the discussion from technical factors to economic and legal ones”, he noted.

Ibragimov also proposed, at the initial stage, to prohibit enriching other operators with data and create a consent management mechanism. “Anyone who gives their consent to data use must understand where it is recorded and how to revoke it.”

“Personal data that may not participate in civil circulation must also be listed”, he noted.

Moreover, the expert considers it necessary to set up an Institute of professional intermediaries to exercise external control. “We need to think about auditing such platforms to ensure independence or launch a new market”, said Ibragimov.

For his part, Director of the Ministry for Economic Development’s Department for digital economy development Vladimir Voloshin also believes that data should work.

“We understand the value of data, understand their potential, but we are so far only just learning to use and apply data in the economy. We need safe tools and tested legal mechanisms preserving a balance between usefulness and safety”, said Voloshin.

He announced that, in order to develop these mechanisms, within the Ministry it is proposed to use experimental legal regimes (ELR). “This mechanism, thanks to which it is possible, on a separate territory, during an allotted time of up to three years and with a limited number of participants, to eliminate the defects in the effective legislation and overcome the restrictions. In 2022, this mechanism began operating”, he explained.

Voloshin announced that, during this time, digitalisation of government services had already been achieved and that robust work has been carried out with the Ministry of Health in the medical sphere.

“Over just a few months, we managed to find a mechanism by which patient data from wearable devices end up in real time in the necessary Ministry of Health systems and an individual organisation. We succeeded is agreeing this scheme with the FSB, which was no easy matter”, he stressed.

Источник: РАПСИ