The Ministry of Infrastructure is planning to introduce changes to railway transport, including checks on passports (internal ID documents) both when buying tickets and when boarding a train

A new law would enable police to receive access to considerable amounts of information about all mobile telephone owners, with the procedure for this, in breach of the Constitution, being stipulated by the Cabinet of Ministers, not by law

On Tuesday civic activists staged a protest outside the President’s Administration calling on him to veto the Law on a Unified State Demographic Register

Since the Law on a Unified State Demographic Register is alleged to be needed to implement the EU-Ukraine Visa Liberalization Action Plan, it seems imperative that EU representatives are fully aware of the grave concern over this bill among human rights and civic organizations.

Viktor Timoshchuk has hard-hitting questions about a law which will cost billions, with it still unclear who will pay, why there has been no tender and why so many documents need biometric chips as well as why the government wants a database with so much information about Ukrainian citizens

The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union outlines the reasons why this law is in breach of the Constitution, the Personal Data Protection Act and international human rights agreements

A law adopted on 2 October introduces an inordinately large number of biometric documents while creating a single database with worrying scope and no protection of privacy

The words are from a song by Alexander Galich. What should Ukrainians expect from the adoption of a Single State Demographic Register?

By bringing in a State Demographic Register, MPs want to have total biometric records on Ukrainians. Much more information will be included than Ukraine’s international commitments demand.

Viktor Tymoshchuk from the Centre for Political and Legal Reform gives a damning assessment of the latest bill proposing to use biometric information on 13 different types of documents

The Personal Data Protection Act has demonstrated a number of problems including restriction of access to public information on grounds of confidentiality of personal data and excessive administrative demands on the processing of personal data

Two representatives of Reporters without Borders consider whether the conflict between Party of the Regions MP Volodymyr Landik and the Internet publication Levy Bereg [LB.ua] is over divulging of personal information.

From 1 July 2012 stiff penalties can be imposed for violation of a law condemned by media and human rights organizations, not least because of the enormous scope it provides for abuse.

Both the Personal Data Protection Act and the law increasing liability for not registering such databases have aroused serious concern among media, human rights and business organizations

Political-Legal Commentary on the Constitutional Court Judgement in response to a constitutional submission from the Zhashkiv District Council (Cherkasy region) asking for an official interpretation of Article 32 § 1, Article 34 § 2 of the Constitution.

Former Acting Defence Minister in Yulia Tymoshenko’s government, Valery Ivashchenko is outraged that the Prosecutors have doctors’ assessments of his state of health that neither he nor his lawyers have been given

NGOs fear that the gathering of data is linked with the approaching parliamentary elections, with the authorities thus trying to find out which NGOs plan to monitor the electoral process and which get financial assistance from abroad

Students who came to show support for Professor Suprun who is facing charges over research into the fate of Germans deported to Arkhangelsk carried banners reading: “Maybe there’s been enough repression?”; “Is it really 1937 again?” and “Free History!”

In Ukraine it’s virtually impossible to use a bank without giving information about your property and public activities. These are the results of research undertaken by Radio Svoboda after the National Bank of Ukraine ordered financial institutions to gather such information about their clients

Civic organizations have recently recorded an increase in monitoring by the authorities of their activities, the civic partnership “New Citizen” informs. Information about NGOs is, for example, being gathered by the State Tax Service and State Administrations.