BY ALEXANDER PAVLOVSKY, PARTNER AT A.T. LEGAL.

The Ministry of Economic Development proposes that data on calls, Internet traffic and payments of mobile phone users should no longer be considered a secret. This information can become available to a wide range of people, including banks and travel services. The Ministry promises that data transfer will take place only with the consent of a subscriber and will help in struggle against telephone swindlers, as well as in promotion of tourist services when a person travels in Russia. Experts are concerned about the growth of spam mailings and the risk of uncontrolled dissemination of cellular operators' client data.

You can read what experts and A.T. Legal Partner Alexander Pavlovsky think about it below:

Alexander Pavlovsky: "The bill actually legalizes the extrajudicial mechanism of obtaining confidential information about subscribers by third parties. Such circumvention of judicial sanction becomes possible by adding the condition of the subscriber's consent. But, as practice in the domestic telecommunications industry shows, a client may give "consent" without even being aware of it, and then there are problems with spam, intrusive calls, and "leaks" of client data. Therefore, the legislator's approach looks extremely dangerous when under the pretext of "imaginary" benefits for the user (improving the quality of services) it may infringe on his fundamental constitutional rights, resulting in zero positive effect of the innovation. The proposed bill threatens the disclosure of a much more significant array of data: with whom a person communicated, how much, what Internet resources he visited, etc.

It is important to note that the amendments to the Law on Communications say nothing about the mandatory consent of the subscriber for sharing information about the communications services provided to him with third parties. It is assumed that the order of passing the information to third parties will be determined by a decree of the Russian Federation Government, which, of course, does not exist at present. The principal innovation of the bill is that it excludes data on connections, traffic, and payments of a subscriber from the list of subscriber information, as restricted information. Consequently, the rule about the user's consent for its transfer to third parties will not be applied to this information. For clients of communication companies this means an uncontrolled "channel" of transfer of information related to them to third parties, the range of which has not been defined yet. Therefore, if the considered amendments to the Law on Communications are adopted, subscribers may face an increase in the number of various kinds of mailings and other promotional materials addressed to them. Of course, the possibility for control by the state authorities, to which the relevant information can also be passed in a simplified manner, will increase.” - notes the lawyer.

You can read more about the publication and the opinion of colleagues via the link: https://profile.ru/society/abonent-polnostju-dostupen-dannye-o-nashih-zvonkah-perestanut-byt-tajnoj-964792/