On January 16, a representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation participated in a meeting of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation on the draft federal law on ratification of the protocol amending the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data.

Representatives of the competent authorities also participated in the discussion.

The meeting agreed on position regarding the need to ratify the protocol of the Convention and to bring legislation of the Russian Federation into line with the Protocol’s provisions. It was signed on October 10, 2018 in accordance with the order of the President of the Russian Federation.

The modernization of the Convention implemented by this Protocol is intended to fix the current level of information technologies development in the participating countries, as well as to respond to new challenges and threats caused by the ever-expanding capabilities of processing and cross-border transmission of personal information.

The participants will continue to take consistent steps to ratify the Protocol for the protection of human rights.

In the near future, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media is to be supervisory authority to implement the Protocol’s provisions.