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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

The right for privacy in Ukraine

15.12.2003   
The short resumes of the session

Moderator: Yevgeniy Zakharov.

Plenary report: Roman Romanov.

Participants of the session:

Maksim Shcherbatiuk, the Internet Association of Ukraine. The right for privacy in the Internet: reality and prospects.

Yevgeniy Zakharov, the KhG. The system of registration of physical persons and the right for privacy.

Inna Banakh, the fund “Povernennia do zhyttia”, Znamenka, the Kirovograd oblast. The analysis of the Ukrainian legislation on the AIDS-infected persons in the context of the observance of the right for privacy.

Eight conferees took part in the discussion.

The right for privacy is somewhat new phenomena in our society. Naturally, in the Soviet times nobody could even dream about the inviolability of private life, correspondence, dwelling, etc. Yevgeniy Sverstiuk correctly called this “a callosity on the public consciousness”. That is why the court claims against the violations of privacy are so rare even now, that is why the Parliament approves the law drafts on the registration of physical persons, although these laws undoubtedly violate the right for the protection of personal information, which is stipulated by the Constitution.

The conferees were familiarized with the modern demands concerning the observance of the right for privacy and considered the basic provisions of the draft of the law on the monitoring of telecommunications and other new legal acts about the collection of information from the communication channels, the law drafts on the registration of physical persons, on protection of personal data, etc. The reporters seriously criticized these law drafts in the connection with the violations of privacy envisaged by the drafts. The unified state automatized passport system is now actively introduced, that the exchange of passports has already begun, although this system is not stipulated by law yet. The tendency exists to use the tax identification number of a person as multi-purpose universal code that will be used in all documents of the person. The opinion was expressed that the realization of this conception would turn Ukraine into a police state, since this would give the law-enforcing structures the opportunity to collect various information about citizens without their consent and the motivation of the purpose of this collection. So, the human rights protecting organizations must analyze the corresponding law drafts and prepare the propositions for the liquidation of these drawbacks.

The participants of the conference briskly discussed the question of the access to medical information on a person, the peculiarities of such access in the case of grave diseases, such as, for example, AIDS. This discussion revealed a number of stereotypes that still are not overcome by public consciousness. One of the conclusions of this discussion was the necessity of familiarization of the public with modern approaches to the right for privacy, in particular, the right for the protection of personal data. The existing draft of the law on personal data must be essentially changed, and, what is the most important, this draft must be considered first of all, before the drafts concerning the collection of personal information. The drafts connected with the processing of personal information must be considered from the viewpoint of the right for privacy.

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