RAISING AWARENESS AMONG THE PUBLIC, GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, AND THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY REGARDING PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issue of increasing the awareness of the public, representatives of state authorities and business on the general aspects of the processing and protection of personal data in Ukraine. The methodological basis of the study is based mainly on general scientific and special legal methods, approaches, and principles of research. In particular, dialectical, phenomenological, axiological, comparative legal, formal-logical, formal-legal, model, prognostic and other methods were used.

According to the results of the study, the main mechanisms for increasing public awareness on the issues of personal data protection were identified, and the prospects for the future development of this direction were determined. It is argued that data protection awareness campaigns are a tool through which data protection supervisory authorities have the opportunity, through seminars, trainings, lectures, guidelines and other materials, not only to help raise awareness in the field of data protection, but also to facilitate the effective implementation of the provisions of the legislation on data protection in practice.

Data protection supervisory authorities of the EU Member States organize data protection awareness campaigns in various ways: conducting seminars/webinars; advising data controllers and data processors on the provisions of Regulation 2016/679; educational videos; campaigns in the media, on websites, on social networks and in the format of targeted seminars; monthly newsletters dedicated to data protection; information days and scientific conferences on this topic; hotlines for data controllers and processors, data subjects and other authorities; memos on personal data protection and advertising. Personal data protection awareness campaigns should be built taking into account the general goal of raising awareness in this area of data subjects and data controllers and/or operators. The Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Commissioner for Human Rights, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine, EU4DigitalUA (FIIAPP), GIZ have launched successful initiatives to raise awareness of the public, representatives of state authorities and businesses on personal data protection. Given the importance of the personal data protection area for Ukraine’s integration into the EU Single Digital Market and our country’s accession to the EU, the personal data protection awareness campaign will only expand in the future. It is emphasized that only the systematic nature of training future specialists in the field of personal data protection will contribute to building a holistic personal data protection system in Ukraine at the level of the best standards and practices of the EU Member States. This should be done both at the level of adopting updated legislation and at the level of implementing these standards in life and raising the level of awareness of citizens, representatives of state authorities and businesses in the field of personal data protection.