Data Protection Bites 1/2021

Lately the Data State Inspectorate (supervision authority) has actively engaged in affairs regarding restrictions for disclosure of personal data in public registers. The Data State Inspectorate has initiated administrative proceedings against one of the largest Latvian IT companies, which ensures its users with access to a platform, where it is possible to see, for instance, information about company board members, shareholders, and ultimate beneficial owners. Such information is also available at the government website maintained by the Registry of Enterprises (state institution which is responsible for the maintenance of public registries).

We are witnessing the first stage of vaccination in Spain against Covid-19, which is being carried out in accordance with the various documents recently published by the Ministry of Health: “Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy in Spain. Key Points ", and "Vaccination strategy against Covid-19 in Spain”, published in November and December 2020 respectively, which describe the main lines that the vaccination strategy must follow, including the prioritisation of different population groups.

India is known to be a high-tech country that is ahead of European countries in many ways when it comes to digitalisation and IT. Nevertheless, India lags behind Europe in the area of data protection. This shall change with the introduction of the Data Protection Bill, 2018 but until then, data protection regulations are rather weak. Still, recently the Orissa High Court reaffirmed the right to be forgotten, which is currently not covered in applicable data protection laws in India. This article will take a closer look at the right to be forgotten in India and it is importance in the times of Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram and co.

On 30 December 2020, Law no. 519-FZ  introducing significant amendments to the Federal Law “On personal data” (the “Law on personal data”, “152-FZ”) was adopted . According to the legislator’s idea, the new rules, most of which will come into force on 1 March 2021, will be able to prevent uncontrolled misuse of personal data, in particular, those published on the Internet. The term of personal data accessible to the public is, inter alia, practically excluded from the 152-FZ, instead of which another term is introduced - “personal data permitted by the data subject for dissemination”. Such data is understood as information, in respect of which access to an unlimited number of persons was granted by the subject himself or at the request of the latter.