Role of Personal Data in the System of Information with Restricted Access

Abstract

The article proposes a personal approach to the formation in Russian legislation a closed system of limiting access to information that is a system with several types of secrets. Under the presented conception, the secrets are classified by the type of their formation. Primary secrets directly related to the activity of a subject and ensure his right to the restricted access to the information. Such secrets deal with the information processed by the subject during his activity. Derived secrets relate to the obligation of a subject as to the protection of information of another subject and communicated on a secret basis (regime of confidentiality). The article specifies the elements of legal regime for each type of secrets including subjective elements and the elements of legal regulators. The article proposes the principles of transforming the regimes for secrets when transmitting information. It studies the regimes of confidentiality acceptable to protect personal data (commercial secret, professional secret, state secret, business secret) and makes a conclusion on the necessity to use these regimes instead of establishing an independent regime of the personal data protection. The author examines certain problems of protecting personal data in the regime of commercial secret, related to the RF Labour Code and the Federal laws On Commercial Secret and On Personal Data. The paper also formulates the conditions of achieving the balance of interests of the subject of personal data (employee) and the operator (employer). A question is studied as to the balance of responsibility of norms for disclosing different types of secrets. It is noted that the balance of sanctions is inconsistent. In particular, maximum sanctions for disclosing commercial or state secrets are equal, the balance has not been arranged properly as to the criminal liability for breaching privacy (breaching the secret of correspondence, disclosing the secret of adoption), sanctions vary too much in relation to the disclosure of professional secrets. All these aspects require the further development of liability measures within the system of secrets.