“Each person has the right to protection not only of privacy but also of personal information. This is one of the fundamental rights outlined in the European Human Rights Charter,” Waltraut Kotschy, EU expert, told a meeting of experts in Kyiv that touched on issues of introducing international standards of protecting personal information. This discussion was initiated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the EU jointly with Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada. Ukraine attaches great importance to incorporating European standards of information privacy into its legislation. As yet it has not signed any of the relevant European documents. For some years Ukraine has been drafting laws on information privacy. According to Maria Shkarlat, GIPI project manager in Ukraine, the bill On Information of a Personal Character that had undergone international expert analysis and was submitted to Verkhovna Rada, is not the sole alternative as there are alternative bills awaiting to be voted on in the parliament, among them a State Committee for Communications and Information bill, On the Protection of Personal Data. Representatives of international human rights organizations came to Kyiv to help speed up the process of harmonizing Ukrainian legislation with international standards, The Day’s correspondent Petro IZHYK reports.
